Pecan Blondies

I have a bit of an obsession with white chocolate. These have the flavour of white chocolate melted into a cake giving them a buttery, smooth taste. Nuts and white chocolate is a well known food combination, and rightly so. These are simply delicious. They may even be better than brownies!

Makes 16 squares

You will need:

175g White Chocolate
115g Unsalted Butter
100g Caster Sugar
2 Medium Eggs
½ tsp Vanilla Extract
125g Plain Flour
½ tsp Baking Powder
150g Pecan Halves

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 C and prepare a 20cm square non-stick cake tin, greased and base-lined with greaseproof paper. Break up the chocolate and put it into a heatproof bowl with the butter. Put the bowl over a pan of of hot water and melt gently while stirring frequently.When the chocolate is nearly all melted, remove the from the pan and stir until smooth.
2. Stir in the sugar, and leave to cool for 2 minutes. (Don't worry if the mixture looks curdled at this stage.)
3. Put the eggs and vanilla into a separate bowl and whisk until frothy. Add to the chocolate mixture and stir well.
4. Sift in the flour with the baking powder and stir. Add 100g of the pecan halves and mix in.
5. Transfer the mixture into the prepared tin and spread out evenly. Scatter the remaining pecan halves over the top. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted halfway between the centre and the side of the cake comes out clean.
6. Leave to cool (if you can resist!), before removing the cake from the tin and cutting into squares.