Breakfast Nut Bars

Now that I'm home and not working, it's been easy to cook for my husband and I regularly. In fact, I even have time to do some unnecessary cooking/baking that's more fun to create than essential to our daily meals.
We usually eat some sort of dairy (kefir/yogurt/cottage cheese) with fresh fruit & granola in the morning. But I've been itching to bake. So I tried to find something I could bake that would still justify as a healthy-ish breakfast. This breakfast blondie recipe from Bon Appetit fit the bill. It has enough protein from the nuts and a good amount of fat to keep me full for a few hours in the morning without making me feel like I'm just eating junk/sugar. It was super easy & quick to make. It took just under 40 minutes from start to finished product.

The flavor of these blondies kind of remind me of protein bars that I used to eat two decades ago (gosh, has it really been that long?!). The peanut flavor comes through nice and strong and the texture of the bars is similar to a coconut flour cake, moist but not dense and with a nice crunchy nut filler in between.

Recipe adapted from Bon Appetit
Makes 8 servings

Ingredients: 
6 tbsp salted butter
1 cup/120 gm walnuts, chopped
3/4 cup/190 gm peanut butter
1/2 cup/120 ml maple syrup
2 tbsp flaxseed meal
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 large eggs

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 375. Line an 8 X 8 baking sheet with parchment paper on all sides. Melt butter on medium heat in a 2 quart saucepan till almost melted and add chopped nuts. Cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring constantly, till the butter in browned and nutty smelling. Immediately put this butter-nut mixture through a sieve into a medium mixing bowl. Let the nuts drain well and then set them aside. To the hot butter, add peanut butter, maple syrup, flaxseed, vanilla extract and baking powder. Whisk until thoroughly blended. Add eggs, one at a time, whisking vigorously each time. Whisk the mixture once more after all the eggs have been added for a minute till the mixture is glossy. Add most of the nuts, reserving about a quarter, and mix it in. Pour this batter into the prepared pan and smooth it out evenly. Sprinkle the reserved nuts and bake for 18-22 minutes till a knife in the center comes out clean. Cut into 8 bars and enjoy!