Brown butter, milk chocolate & pretzel blondies

To brown the butter, heat the butter in a medium-sized saucepan over a medium-high heat until melted. Bring to a boil and bubble vigorously. The bubbles will get smaller and smaller, then the mixture will quieten and you’ll start to see brown speckles in the foam. Give it a good stir, take off the heat and leave to cool for 20 minutes before using. Preheat the oven to 170ºC, gas mark 3. Line a 20cm square tin with baking parchment, cutting diagonal slits in the corners of the paper so that the parchment can fold into the tin and sit flush.

Whisk the sugars and eggs together briefly in a mixing bowl until thick and pale. Whisk in the browned butter and vanilla paste. Fold through the flour and salt, followed by the milk chocolate and 50g broken pretzels. Decant into the lined tin, smooth the top and scatter over the remaining pretzels, gently pressing them into the mixture.

Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool and sit overnight at room temperature (this will give you the best blondie texture: fudgy without being undercooked). If you want beautiful chunks, refrigerate the cooled tin, cut into squares with a sharp knife, and then allow to return to room temperature before eating – a faff, but it makes a difference.