Lemon poppyseed blondies with strawberry glaze

Hey! Welcome back to our weekly recipe series. If you're new here, you can discover more of my culinary creations on social media at @alliesbananabread.

I remember the first time I realized baking was way harder than I thought. As most of you probably know, I learned to bake using my grandma's recipes. if there was something I wanted to bake, she always had a recipe for it. I still do this all the time.

So it was my mom's birthday, and one of her favorite things was my grandma's coffee cake. I called my grandma and she sent me a photo of the recipe she had written on a piece of paper. There were kind of a lot of instructions and I was like, "OK whatever, I'm just gonna throw all these ingredients together and mix it. It'll be fine."

Well, guess what? I was obviously wrong.

It was the first thing that really opened my eyes to how important every little detail is in baking. The order that you add things, the mixing time, even just that 1/8 teaspoon of baking powder. It all makes a huge difference.

Making these blondies reminded me of this whole thing. The first batch, I added baking soda instead of baking powder and I totally overmixed the batter. I kind of had a feeling I messed up, but I put them in the oven anyway and they came out as cake. By the time I knew I made this mistake, I couldn't go back.

That's the other frustrating thing about baking—it's not like cooking where if something isn't salty enough, you can just add more salt. You have to wait until it's done, cooled, then try it and see what mistakes you made.

Anyway, this week's recipe is these super refreshing lemon poppy seed blondies. I wanted to add another fruity element to it, so I did a strawberry glaze. Usually with lemon I go blueberry, but the strawberry felt more summery to me. I like to keep these in the fridge. They're so good cold.

Follow the instructions on this one, and most importantly, don't over mix! Trust me on that one.

As always, I'm open to your suggestions for future recipes—feel free to reach out via email, Instagram DM, or however works best for you.

love u all!! -Allie

Ingredients:

• 9x9 pan

• flaky sea salt (topping)

Blondies:

• 1/2 cup sugar

• 1/2 cup brown sugar

• 1 stick unsalted butter melted

• 1 egg

• 1 egg yolk

• 1 tsp cornstarch

• 1/2 tsp kosher salt

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 1 tsp lemon extract

• 1 TBSP lemon juice

• 2 TBSP lemon zest

• 1 TBSP poppy seeds

• 1 cup flour

Glaze:

2 TBSP half and half

1 TBSP strawberry jam

1 TBSP lemon juice

1 cup powdered sugar

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Melt the butter with the sugar, brown sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest and mix it all together. set aside to cool.

3. Whisk the egg, egg yolk, vanilla, and poppyseeds until mixed.

4. Add the butter mixture and stir until mixed and glossy.

5. Add the flour, salt, and cornstarch and mix only until it’s all mixed in. Don’t over mix!

6. Add batter to pan.

7. Bake at 350 for about 15-20 minutes. It should look slightly under baked. If you put a knife in the middle and a little comes out that’s okay, it will continue to bake outside the oven.

8. Sprinkle some flaky sea salt on top of the blondies.

9. Once cooled, mix all the glaze ingredients together and whisk.

10. Top the blondies with the the glaze and put them in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

Notes:

-You can definitely cut this glaze recipe in half, I realized it was too much. Or you can just make it all and save some on the side. That’s always fun just in case you want a little extra as you’re eating them :)