brown butter toffee blondies

These are some pretty freaking fabulous toffee blondies.They're moist and buttery and as easy to make as a cookie -- maybe even easier.And you get to brown butter.Then mix it with brown sugar. And toffee.These will absolutely make your kitchen -- maybe the entire house -- smell awesome.Texturally, they're fantastic -- the edges have a definite cookie-like crunch, while the middle of the bars are buttery and moist.All while tiny bits of toffee and nuts run through the whole thing.I must confess, though -- these blondies were almost a disaster.I'm a devotee of underbaking, so I pulled these out at about 30 minutes, after the toothpick came out mostly clean. I popped them out of the pan a few minutes later to cool on the rack.Mistake. They started to fall apart almost instantly. I reinverted the whole thing (somewhat haphazardly in my panicked state) back into the pan and gave them another 5 to 7  minutes in the oven. I left them in the pan to cool that time around.The ugly spots from my pan-to-rack-back-to-pan switcheroo didn't affect the blondies' yumminess.And the cracks and creases, they just add a little personality. Brown Butter Toffee Blondiesadapted from Martha Stewart's "Cookies"

• 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 eggs (I just eyeballed it, didn't add all of the second egg to the batter)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup toffee bits

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or spray an 8 x 8 square baking pan with vegetable spray.In a saucepan, melt butter over medium-high heat. Stirring periodically, bring butter to a low boil and allow to cook until it turns golden brown. Pour into large bowl or bowl of an electric mixer and let cool.In small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.Once butter has cooled, add sugars to bowl and stir together until well-combined, about 1 minute.With mixer on medium speed, add eggs to the butter-sugar mixture and beat until light-colored and airy, about 3 minutes.  Add vanilla and beat until smooth, about 1 minute. With mixer on low, add flour mixture, walnuts and toffee bits. Beat until just combined.Pour mixture into prepared baking pan and bake for about 35 to 40 minutes, when toothpick inserted about an inch from the edge of the pan comes out mostly clean. Do not overbake. Allow blondies to cool in pan on rack (this cooling method is very important, as they continue to set up while sitting in the pan -- I learned the hard way). Once completely cool, remove from pan and cut into squares.Serve as is, or topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and homemade caramel sauce.