White Chocolate and Raspberry Blondies

This easy recipe for white chocolate and raspberry blondies is made with browned butter for extra nutty flavour and brown sugar for that toffee flavour. Bake this recipe longer for chewier, firmer blondies, or less for a softer, more gooey blondie.

I love the combination of sweet, vanilla-flavoured baked goods and fruit. The pairing works especially well in fruit muffins like these rhubarb muffins with sour cream, honey blueberry muffins, or even low-sugar blueberry bran muffins. And you can even make it work in cookies, like these blueberry oatmeal cookies with white chocolate chips.

Jump to:

• Basic Ingredients to Make Blondies
• Substitutions and Variations
• How to Make Blondies with Raspberries
• Tips for Adding Delicate Berries to Baked Goods
• Blondie Baking FAQs
• Other Dessert Bar Recipes to Bake
• 📖 Recipe

Financiers are also a great canvas for fruit because these little cakes are sweet and nutty, the perfect pairing for bright fruit flavours. I added slices of golden kiwis to these coconut financiers, cranberries to these gluten-free chestnut financiers, and raspberries to make classic berry financiers.

You simply can't go wrong with playing with fruits in baked goods! 

Basic Ingredients to Make Blondies

Blondies are made with the same basic ingredients as chocolate chip cookies, so you will need:

• butter, preferably unsalted butter because you will add salt to the cookie dough, but if you have salted butter, it will work. Just adjust the salt in the recipe accordingly, otherwise, your bars may be too salty. We will be browning the butter for this recipe!
• sugar, both granulated and brown sugar work here. I prefer using all (or mostly) brown sugar for the flavour and to balance out the egg in the cookie dough.
• large eggs, don't use smaller eggs because your cookie dough may be too dry and your brownies may be crumbly but don't use extra large eggs because they could cause the batter to separate
• vanilla extract—I use pure vanilla extract in this recipe though artificial could work (just use a little less because it's more potent)
• all-purpose flour is needed to bind all the ingredients together and give the blondies structure, contributing to the chewiness of the bars as well. If you don't use enough flour, your cookie bars may be overly fudgy and dense
• salt is really important to balance out the sweet chocolate flavour, especially since these brownies feature quite a bit of candy chocolate. Please don't skip it. I like to use Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt, but table salt will work, though the bars will be saltier and you may want to halve the salt in that case
• leavening agents—both baking soda and baking powder are added to the mix of dry ingredients to open up the crumb of the cookie leading to a lighter texture. People who like cakey cookies tend to favour recipes with baking powder. 
• white chocolate, either a chopped bar of white chocolate or white chocolate chips will work
• Fresh raspberries to scatter on top of the bars before baking

Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.

Tip: Not sure about the difference between the leavening agents? Please read this post about baking soda versus baking powder.

Substitutions and Variations

If you need to make some baking substitution ideas for this recipe:

• browned butter: I love to brown the butter before making blondies because it adds a nutty flavour to the cookie dough, but by all means, just use melted!
• sugar: I used a combination of mostly light brown sugar with a little granulated sugar. You can do all brown sugar and even use dark brown sugar for a more flavourful blondie bar
• chocolate: feel free to replace the white chocolate with semi-sweet chocolate chips or any of your favourite chocolate chips or chopped chocolate. Any chocolate will do but try to use a good type of chocolate for baking! Dark chocolate would balance out the sweetness of these bars, while white chocolate enhances it, adding some milky notes. I've also tested this recipe with cream cheese-flavoured chips and was very happy with the results!
• berries: Raspberries can be replaced with frozen raspberries, and blueberries would also work great.
• vanilla: you can replace the vanilla extract with a splash of bourbon or scotch, which will provide an interesting oak flavour to these blondies. Vanilla bean paste also works in this recipe.

How to Make Blondies with Raspberries

Step 1: Before you do anything else, brown the butter in a small saucepan (image 1) so that it can cool down a little before you make the cookie dough. Meanwhile whisk the dry ingredients in a small bowl (image 2).

Tip: If you've never done it before, please read all about how to make brown butter before making this recipe!

Step 2: Combine the cooled brown butter and sugars in a mixer bowl and whisk them using an electric hand mixer (image 3). You can also do this by hand. Once well mixed, add the egg and vanilla (image 4). Beat the mixture until light and fluffy (image 5).

Step 3: Add the dry ingredients (image 6) and stir them in. You may use a spatula to make sure the mixture is evenly mixed (image 7), then stir in the white chocolate chips (image 8). Pat out the cookie dough in a greased 8x8 pan (image 9).

Step 4: Scatter the top of the blondies with fresh raspberries and then bake until the edges are golden brown and the surface begins to set (image 11).

Tips for Adding Delicate Berries to Baked Goods

The cool thing about baking with fruit is that you can also use fruit as a topping for bars, like brownies and blondies. I realized how well this works after garnishing these one-bowl brownies with raspberries just before baking.

Since it's raspberry season, I decided to take my fruity obsession one step further and make these white chocolate and raspberry blondies. When you want to add delicate berries to cake batters or cookie doughs, you have to be very careful to avoid crushing the berries, which will ooze too much juice and throw off the recipe. That shouldn't stop you because you have options:

1. Freeze the berries until they are solid so that you can fold them into cake batters (about an hour or more if possible). For this to work, you have to incorporate the frozen berries directly from the freezer. I did this for these honey blueberry muffins, for example. But if you decided to go this route, don't dawdle! And make sure to bake the batter right away or else the fruit will defrost and break down and make your baked goods gummy.
2. Scatter the berries on top before baking or layer them in stages (which is what I did to make these apple blackberry muffins, where I scooped a little batter into each muffin cup, then scattered a few berries, and then repeated to fill the cups).

Blondie Baking FAQs

Other Dessert Bar Recipes to Bake

Blondies and other cookie bar recipes are great for serving a crowd fast. You bake them all in one pan and slice to serve, making the whole process faster than scooping and baking individual cookies.

These raspberry and white chocolate blondies are the perfect summery treat when raspberries are in season!

If you tried this recipe for the best white chocolate raspberry blondies (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

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