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pot luck

“Hot Blondies Anyone?”

When I was little, many moons ago, my dad, who had custody of my brother and I every other weekend and every Tuesday, used to take us to a bake shop on the Upper West Side called The Well Bread Loaf. It was a sweet little place that was filled with the aroma of browning butter and melting chocolate that literally lured me in like a kitten to a saucer of milk.

My weekly treat from the Well Bread Loaf was something very unusual at the time called a blondie—pretty much a brownie-type cake but made from yellow cake instead of chocolate, that was studded with huge chunks of chocolate and butterscotch. Who cared that my parents were divorced and I was the subject of an inter-borough child custody share. I was in heaven. It's no wonder i have dedicated my life to a career in food. It has always been a source of comfort and security in a time when little else felt that way.

My memories of the Well Bread Loaf flooded back over me this week when I learned of a new line of blondies from a company called Hot Blondies Bakery. The online bakery was created by a pair of career changers bored of their desk jobs: Lorin Rokoff, who worked in the non-profit sector before turning her talents to the kitchen, and her partner Laura Paterson, a marketing and PR guru. This pair of lovely ladies have created a company dedicated to the art of the blondie and are currently baking a variety of crazy good treats in classic, white chocolate chip, peanut butter chocolate chunk and oatmeal raisin. For those who love their brownies (and who doesn't?) they’ve also invented a line called Brunettes that includes flavors like S’mores, espresso white chocolate, and nutella hazelnut. These are also insanely good.

These days, I am no longer a young awkward kid with recently divorced parents, but a rather nervous new parent of a young nine-week old babe, and all I can say is the comfort of the blondie should not be underestimated. And while my heart will always belong to The Well Bread Loaf, these Hot Blondies are quite remarkable: they're oversized, cakey, buttery and lovely, and impossible to resist. They’re baked fresh and shipped to your door the same day, or you can sample them (and meet the Hot Blondies themselves) at Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene on Saturdays from 10-5pm.

For orders and more information, visit hotblondiesbakery.com. Brownies and Blondies are priced as follows: Four for $16, Six for $24, 12 for $45.

Enjoy!

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Posted: July 9, 2009

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