These soft and chewy brown butter apple blondies combine cinnamon-spiced apples, brown sugar, and flavorful brown butter. We’ll top them with brown butter icing, a reader favorite icing that I also use for peach Bundt cake and pistachio cookies. If you love apple desserts like I do, these are a must-make!
Alternate title for this recipe: Butter
Let’s celebrate apples with immensely buttery blondies. The good news is that this recipe makes a large 9×13-inch pan, so there’s plenty to share.
But the bad news is… you have to share them.
These Brown Butter Apple Blondies Are:
- Cinnamon-spiced
- Soft and sweet
- Chewy, not cakey
- Flavored with brown sugar and brown butter
- Bursting with apples
How to Make Brown Butter Apple Blondies
Listen up because there’s a few steps to conquer before we take that first bite.
- Brown the butter first. We’ll use brown butter in the blondies and in the icing. Pour the browned butter into a heat-safe bowl, then return the pan to the stove. No need to clean the pan because we’re using it in the next step.
- Peel, chop, and gently cook the apples. You *could* stir the apples right into the blondie batter, but the apples taste much better if they’re slightly softened first. Cook the chopped apples on the stove for only 3–5 minutes. We’ll cook them with a little maple syrup (or brown sugar) and cinnamon. IT’S ALL SO GOOD!
- Make the blondie batter. There’s no electric mixer required for this recipe! Whisk the brown butter with brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients, and the pre-cooked apples, then spread the batter into a lined 9×13-inch pan.
- Bake until lightly browned on top. The blondies take about 35 minutes.
- As the blondies cool, prepare the icing. Mix a little more brown butter with confectioners’ sugar, milk, vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt.
Here are the gently cooked apples and the blondie batter:
Success Tip: Lining the pan with parchment paper makes it much easier to remove the apple blondies before slicing and serving. I use the same tip when making rice krispie treats and M&M cookie bars, too.
Best Apples for Brown Butter Apple Blondies
You can use your favorite variety of apples. I prefer tart Granny Smith apples because the blondies are pretty sweet. For a complete list of my favorite apple varieties to bake with, with a description of each, you can visit my post, The Best Apples for Baking.
The Magic of Brown Butter
Let’s talk about brown butter. I actually created a page for all things brown butter including the quick process, success tips, and a video tutorial. Brown butter is a one-ingredient wonder and vasty improves the flavor in any dish where it’s used, including these blondies and these marshmallow crispy cookies. Brown butter by gently cooking and stirring it on the stove until its milk solids toast and it has a nutty aroma. This takes anywhere between 5–8 minutes, so it’s a pretty quick step.
And well worth every single second. In less than 10 minutes, you’ll have liquid gold:
Brown Butter Icing
The blondies don’t *need* icing, just like we don’t *need* to binge-watch Netflix on a Sunday night. But we want it, so we’ll do it.
This is the same brown butter icing we use for pistachio cookies, skillet cornmeal cake, pecan sugar cookies, and brown butter pumpkin oatmeal cookies. It’s remarkable and readers have been raving about it on my peach Bundt cake. Try it on scones and cinnamon rolls too. (You won’t regret this icing, unlike the 4 hours of Netflix binge-watching.)
More Apple Treats
- Classic Apple Pie
- Homemade Apple Cider
- Apple Cinnamon Bread
- Apple Cinnamon Rolls
- Caramel Apple Scones
- Apple Hand Pies
- Apple Bundt Cake
- Fresh Apple Cake
- Honeycrisp Apple Sangria
Brown Butter Apple Blondies
- Prep Time: 25 minutes
- Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours
- Yield: 24 blondies
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These soft and chewy brown butter apple blondies combine cinnamon-spiced apples, brown sugar, and flavorful brown butter. For extra flavor, top with brown butter icing. Read recipe Notes prior to beginning.
Ingredients
Apples
- 2 cups (240g) peeled chopped apples (about 2 medium apples)
- 2 Tablespoons (30g/ml) pure maple syrup (or brown sugar)
- 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Blondies
- 1 cup (16 Tbsp; 226g) unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces
- 2 and 1/3 cups (291g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 and 2/3 cups (330g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Brown Butter Icing
- 1/4 cup (4 Tbsp; 56g) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
- 1 and 1/2 cups (180g) confectioners’ sugar
- 2 Tablespoons (30g/ml) milk
- 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
Instructions
- Brown the butter for the blondies and the icing: Place all 20 Tablespoons of butter in a light-colored skillet over medium heat. (Light-colored helps you determine when the butter begins browning.) Stir or whisk the butter constantly as it melts. Once melted, the butter will begin to foam. Keep stirring. After 5–8 minutes, the butter will begin browning—you’ll notice lightly browned specks begin to form at the bottom of the pan and it will have a nutty aroma. As soon as the butter has browned, immediately remove from heat and pour it into a heat-safe glass bowl or liquid measuring cup. Be sure to scrape out all the browned solids at the bottom of the skillet and include them as well. Transfer 3 Tbsp (43g) of the browned butter to a small bowl and reserve for the icing in step 7. The rest will go into the blondie batter in step 5. Because of moisture lost during the browning process, you will now have less butter than you started with—this is expected. Allow brown butter to slightly cool while you continue.
- Prepare the apples: Meanwhile, return the pan to the stove. (No need to rinse out!) Add the apples, maple syrup/brown sugar, and cinnamon. Stir and cook over medium heat until apples have slightly softened, about 3–5 minutes. Set apples aside.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line the bottom and sides of a 9×13-inch baking pan with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on the sides to lift out the cooled blondies (makes cutting easier!). Set aside.
- Make the blondies: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the brown butter, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Fold in the apples. Batter will be thick.
- Spread batter evenly into the prepared pan. Bake for about 35 minutes or until the top is lightly browned and a toothpick comes out *mostly* clean. Remove from the oven and allow the blondies to cool completely in the pan set on a cooling rack.
- Make the icing: If the brown butter you set aside for the icing has solidified, warm it in the microwave for a few seconds to melt it back into liquid, then whisk together with the confectioners’ sugar, milk, vanilla extract, and salt. If needed, add more confectioners’ sugar to thicken, or more milk to thin out. Drizzle or spread over cooled blondies.
- Lift the blondies out of the pan by gripping the parchment paper overhang; transfer to a cutting board and cut into squares. Store tightly covered at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: Iced or plain blondies freeze well up to 3 months. Arrange in even layers in a large freezer container between sheets of parchment. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator, then allow to come to room temperature before icing and/or serving.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Light-Colored Skillet or Stainless Steel Skillet (for browning butter) | 9×13-inch Baking Pan | Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Rubber Spatula
- Apples: Use your favorite variety of apples. I prefer tart Granny Smith apples because the blondies are pretty sweet. Peel and chop into bite-sized pieces before using.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Delicious! If you like apples this is your kind of dessert.
Really fun to make and rave reviews! The brown butter came together easier than I was anticipating. The process was intimidating to me but it came together as described and the flavor is off the charts amazing! My husband and coworkers absolutely loved the bars. I can’t get enough of them.
I made these for a party we had this past weekend and they were AMAZING!!!! Not a crumb left over!
This is a favorite in my family just as written. But- I have started adding a teaspoon of boiled apple cider to the batter and it really enhances your apple flavor!
This is my favorite apple recipe!
OMG. I heard of brown butter but have never made or used it. Have these a try yesterday and my life just got 1000x better. I think I’ll be adding brown butter to everything from now on. I halved the recipe but other than that followed exactly. Baked for 30 minutes and they were perfect. This is absolutely my ew favourite dessert. Husband and kids each had two squares for dessert and were almost out. Looks like I should have cooked a full batch.
If I make these without the apples, do I change any other ingredient amounts?
Hi Pamela, You may prefer one of our other blondie recipes that don’t contain apples instead.
We had a small group gathering last night and I served these. I literally thought people were going to lick their plates!
This was delicious and exactly the recipe I was lookking for. We aren’t a big pie family, but we did pick some apples with family this fast weekend and this was exactly what we were looking for! Yum!! I didn’t even add the glaze and the blondies themselves are super tasty!
Absolutely incredible. My kids said it was the best thing they’ve ever tasted! I made them for a BBQ a day in advance, kept them in the fridge overnight. They were still absolutely delicious, maybe even better the next day!
So good and easy to make! I added caramel sauce on top 10/10
WOW! These are delicious. The browned butter adds such an amazing flavor, and they are super moist. These will not last long in my house!
Delicious. Maybe check the amount of confectionery sugar in the frosting. Other recipes referenced call for 1 cup vs 1.5. It’s seems to need significantly more milk to drizzle.
such a simple and delicious recipe!! the extra step of browning the butter is so worth it! it adds such an incredible depth of flavour 🙂 ideally i would’ve used a bit more of a tart apple but i only had gala apples on hand but that didn’t seem to effect the flavour at all – they were still super yummy! would totally recommend this recipe to anyone 🙂 and these will definitely become a staple in my house
After removing 4 Tbl of the browned butter for the icing, there is not a full cup of the butter to put into the batter. Was that a typo?
Hi Christine! The batter calls for 1 cup butter and the icing calls for an additional 1/4 cup. You can brown them together, then separate them.
I had the same question, but your response didn’t quite answer it.
The issue is I started with 1.25 cups of butter but when growing the butter quantity reduced. At the end I reserved my .25 cup for icing and had .75 cups for the batter. Personally I just rolled with it and they were delicious! My apples sweated out some and it seemed that moisture helped replace it.
I agree with Christine and Carolyn that this is an error in the recipe that should be corrected. The browning process reduces the amount by about 20-25% so the starting amounts of butter should be increased if the end amount needs to be 1 1/4 cups
Hi! can I replace the apples for chocolate chips?
Hi Diana, that should be just fine.
This is my favorite recipe here and I make these more often than I’d like to admit I’ve subbed the apple for pear a few times recently… DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!! Thank you Sally!!!
I followed the recipe but mine ended up so gooey that they crumbled when cutting them
Hi Angelina, blondies can be quite moist and chewy, but if they seemed excessively gooey it’s possible that they were a bit under baked. Some additional time in the oven should help for next time. Thank you for giving these a try!
I made this recently and they turned out wonderful! I weighed the ingredients that listed weights. When I mixed the dry and wet ingredients, the “batter” was so thick that it was more like cookie dough in consistency. I’m not sure what happened. Is it possible that the butter got too cold (sat on stove until added) or maybe, since I browned it separately in two different pans (1 cup for blondies and 1/4 cup for icing), the amounts were a bit off (perhaps due to evaporation?)? The icing consistency was fine, by the way. The blondie batter was so thick that I had a hard time mixing it by hand. I ended up browning two more Tablespoons of butter, only using one, to thin the batter to a really thick batter consistency. When I added the apples, however, the batter thinned out to what I would call a “thick batter consistency”. It doesn’t really matter, because they were delicious, but I’m curious as to why it was that thick. When weights are provided in the recipe, I usually weigh everything I can to keep from using too much or too little of something (especially flour). Thanks!
These are amazing!! I didn’t have nutmeg so I left it out. But otherwise followed the directions. I did make the apple pieces smaller because of picky eaters.
Your recipes are amazing! Could I incorporate ripe bananas in this somehow? Thanks! Or do you have an apple banana bread recipe?
Hi Sheena, we haven’t tried adding bananas to this recipe. It would require some tweaking of the other ingredients, since you’d be adding a wet ingredient with the addition of bananas. We do have these baby apple banana oat muffins that include banana and apples (delicious for adults, too!), this apple bread, or this banana bread.
Over the weekend I bought some Linzer Bar Cookies from a local bakery and they were the best cookie I’ve ever eaten. I was wondering if I could substitute homemade raspberry for the apples and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Maybe you would consider creating a recipe like this.
Thank you.
Hi Gail, those sound delicious! Raspberries can be a bit tricky with the amount of liquid they create when baking, but you can certainly give it a try. It may take some tweaking of the recipe, but let us know if you do any experimenting. You enjoy these raspberry streusel bars, too!
These are absolutely amazing. I brought them into work and my coworkers would not stop raving about how delicious they are. Definitely keeping these in the apple baking rotation! Absolutely perfect
one of my favorite recipes!! i used a pre-made apple pie filling instead of chopping whole apples to save some time and it came out amazing!! highly reccomend if you want to save some time on the prep! i also added cloves to add to the autumnal vibes and absolutely loved it. i’ll be trying the recipe out with monk fruit for thanksgiving this week!!
When using pre-made apple pie filling, do you cut back on the amount of sugar and cinnamon you add?
My college aged son reminded me that I made these for Thanksgiving Eve dinner last year when we had overnight guests. That was his subtle hint to make them again! These bars are really delicious and a nice fall dessert that’s easier than pie.
I have made these many times and always received extremely positive reviews. They take a bit of time with chopping the apples and browning the butter, but they’re not super hard and they are WELL worth it. The texture is just fabulous, and the flavors are so autumnal and gorgeous. I usually add just a smidge of cardamom to make the other flavors pop.
Made today they came out great
Does anyone know if the butter had to be cooled or if you can use at warm
Hi Cathleen, you can use the butter slightly warm, you just don’t want it so hot that it scrambles the eggs in the batter.
Amazing recipe as usual Sally! Had friends over for dinner and served these for dessert. Everyone raved about them!
Recipe tasted wonderful, but 35 minutes is WAY too long. I did my second batch for 25 and they turned out fine.
bake time is too long and you can taste the baking powder
Half gone and I haven’t made the icing yet.