Enjoy Lots of Gluten-Free Chocolate Chunk Blondies

We starting off the New Year with a relatively new brand to our Chocolate Cult family -- Enjoy Life Foods. We looked at their snack packs for Halloween but now that the weather has turned cold and I'm baking more, we can look at the other products they sent us to test and write about. I went looking for recipes for rice flour brownies. Why? I wanted to try to make something that folks who actively seek out allergen free products might like. Finally I found one on Broma Bakery that was for blondies that I thought I could compare to a recipe on the Crisco website (I had that product left over from some of my holiday baking and want to use it up). This article is not just a review of the Enjoy Life Mega Chunks that I used but also a review of my attempt to combine and revise two recipes into a new one. Enjoy Life Foods sent us a 10oz bag of their Mega Chunks (in the white bag on top in the photo) for free in exchange for an objective article about them; no other form of compensation was received.


The Broma Bakery recipe can be found here and I want to thank Sarah for her recipe. I also want to thank the Crisco website for their recipe. I won't repeat these recipes here because you all should check them out for yourself. Go on, don't worry, it should open in a new tab so you can continue reading our post.

Or you can stay here and look at this photo of the chunks. These measure 3/4 of an inch long!

This is my version of Chocolate Chunk Blondies. These are "Big" in terms of amount of blondies and amount of calories for my household. It was a friend's birthday this weekend and I shared them with a group of friends in honor of that so I don't too bad. Plus as long as you indulge in Moderation, it is fine, it really is. I still lost two pounds over the winter holidays following this rule. (Go Me!)

TammyJo's Big Batch Rice Flour Chocolate Chunk Blondies

Ingredients:

3 Cups of Rice Flour

1.5 Sticks of Butter Flavor Crisco Baking Sticks

3 T Skim Milk

576 grams Light Brown Sugar (or 3 Cups)

3 Egg Whites

1 T Real Vanilla Extract (I make my own)

4.5 grams of Salt (or 3/4 tsp)

3 Tsp Baking Soda

1.5 Tsp Baking Powder

1 10 oz bag of Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Chocolate Mega Chunks

Directions:

1. Move an oven rack to the central position in your oven and then preheat oven to 350 °F. Spray the bottom and sides of a 13 X 9 X 2 inch baking pan with no-stick spray.

2. Measure out rice flour and place in large bowl then set aside. You'll need this later.

3. Put shortening and milk in a large microwave-safe bowl. If you cut the shortening into pieces it will melt faster. Set microwave on medium and wave for 1 minute, stir. Continuing this pattern of heating and stirring until the crisco is melted and the milk is blended in. Remove bowl from microwave for the next steps.

4. Measure out the light brown sugar. Add the sugar  to the liquids and stir making sure to break up any of the clumps of sugar as you do so. Add in the eggs whites and vanilla then beat the ingredients with an electric mixer for about 3 minutes. It will be fairly thick.

5. Add salt, baking soda, and baking powder to the rice flour and blend together.

6. Mix in the sugar fluff with the flour and blend with your electric mixer until smooth. Depending on your weather conditions you may want to add more skim milk but do NOT add more than 1 T at a time then beat. Add in the chocolate chunks and stir until these are spread throughout.

7. Spread into the baking pan then place the pan in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Then reduce the heat to 325 °F and continue baking for 10 minutes, checking with on the toothpick test to see if you need to add more time. This helps prevent burning the outside but keeps baking the inside so it isn't too doughy even though I know some folks love doughy brownies and blondies.

Don't know what the toothpick test is? Ask me in the comments and I'll get back to you within a day.

8. Take out of the oven and allow to cool for an hour. I like to set my pan on a cooling rack so that the air can flow all around it freely.

I cut mine into 32 pieces with 215 calories each. If I had used regular whole wheat flour it would have cut the calories and made each bar 196 calories. It is up to you.

Feedback from my taste testers was DELICIOUS -- brown sugar flavor with bursts of chocolate! The chocolate chunks kept their form well but also melted just a touch so they were easy to eat. They earn Sacrament Status.

If an allergen free chocolate chunk product is something you are interested in, go check out Enjoy Life Foods or you might be able to find them in your grocery stores. I find their products at my local Kroger, Marsh, Target, Lucky's, and our local co-ops and health food stores.