Gluten Free: Strawberry Blondies

Quite frankly, I've given up on trying to work out what the weather is up to and wondering if summer is ever going to arrive, or hang around for longer than 5 minutes. It seems to me that whenever I'm at work and stuck inside, the sun comes out; when I'm off work, it rains. Returning home to the smell of other people's barbecues can get a bit wearing so I'm fighting back.

Nothing says summer more, for me, than the smell of ripe strawberries. I have therefore resolved to fill my kitchen with their fragrant sweetness by baking copious amounts of these strawberry blondies.

Of course, when I say blondie I'm not referring to the fabulous Debbie Harry and her band-mates, but rather to the baked good. Blondies are basically the same as brownies, except they're blonde, not brown. Blondies (and brownies) are pretty easy to make gluten free since it's often difficult to get enough air into GF batters, but you want your blondies to be dense and fudgey.

These lovelies came into being because I had some squished strawberries leftover from making a fruit glaze and I didn't want to just throw them away. Instead, I chucked them into some blondie mixture and the result was a dangerously more-ish treat. You'll need to use ripe strawberries for this, not bounce-them-on-the-counter solid ones, and this recipe is ideal for those slightly ugly and knobbly berries that don't cut it for topping cakes.

You'll need

• 200g strawberries, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 240g white chocolate
• 120g butter
• 120g light brown sugar
• 120g gluten free plain flour mix (I used Doves Farm Organics)
• 2 eggs

Make it!

• Preheat your oven to 170°C.
• Put the strawberries in a large sieve or colander placed over a bowl and sprinkle with the caster sugar. Leave for about an hour, until the juices run out of the berries. Give them a bit of a squish to squeeze out and residual liquid, but don't mash. (If you use the strawberries straight up, you'll get a soggy blondie. You can save the juice to make syrup, or heat with a little arrowroot powder until thick to glaze fruit tarts or cakes.)
• Put the white chocolate, butter and sugar in a heatproof bowl and sit it over a pan of just simmering water. Make sure that the base of the bowl doesn't touch the surface of the water. 
• When everything has melted, take the bowl off the pan and stir well to combine. Add the flour mix, and stir gently until smooth. Stir in the eggs, one at a time, then fold in the strawberries.
• Pour the batter into a greased and lined 20cm x 20cm tin and bake for 25-30 minutes
• Allow to cool completely in the tin before turning out.