Pumpkin Spice M&M Dulce De Leche Blondies

I can’t even begin to express how happy I am that August is almost gone. It has been a month full of bad news for us, so a fresh new month is definitely welcome. September marks the start of pumpkin things, cinnamon scents, fun decor, football and milder weather. I’m also hoping that September helps us close the whole lightning hit our house chapter in our lives. We’ve been spending our afternoons/evenings trying to get our house back in order (you’d be surprised how much clutter you accumulate when you just don’t care anymore) to make our house feel like a home again. I totally bought 4 fall scented candles, even though fall isn’t here yet. I promised myself I that wouldn’t light them until September 1st, but you better believe first thing that morning (well, OK…after church), the summer candles are being put away and our Bath and Body Works Leaves candle will be burning. 🙂

I also told myself that I won’t touch the cans of pumpkin in our pantry until September 1st. I’m surprised that I haven’t broken that little promise, because trust me, I’ve been SO tempted to bake up some pumpkin bread. That’s totally happening Sunday morning, as well. Now, I did sort of stretch things a bit making these blondies a couple of nights ago. We went to Target over the weekend to start replacing the food that we lost in the fridge. By the way, I can’t tell you guys how amazing everyone was to us the night that fire happened. I’m SO SO thankful for our neighbors, especially, for loaning us their outside plug to keep the contents of the deep freezer from spoiling until we could get an electrician to replace all of the fried wires. Anyway, we were at Target, and I was walking past the check-out lines and saw an end-cap full of fall M&Ms. My weakness is actually the pumpkin spice kisses, but then I saw pumpkin spice M&Ms. OMG.

I just had to make something with them. After a bit of thought, I decided to add them to blondies. I found a base recipe on Smitten Kitchen’s site, and I added in some pumpkin spice to give it that fall flavor (without using pumpkin haha!). After mixing the batter, I spread half of it on the pan, added a whole can of dulce de leche on top of that, and then added the rest of the batter on top. Ooey gooey amazingness, basically. These bars are so rich, but that just gave me an excuse to top them with vanilla ice cream. 🙂 They were also super easy to throw together….one bowl to make the blondies and the dulce de leche is in a can. It’s sort of dangerous….in a you better wrap them up and bring them to coworkers the next day before you eat the whole pan, dangerous.

Pumpkin Spice M&M Dulce De Leche Blondies
Source: adapted from Smitten Kitchen, originally from How to Cook Everything

Ingredients:

• 16 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
• 2 cups light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
• a pinch of ground cloves
• a pinch of salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 9.9 oz. bag of pumpkin spice M&Ms
• 1 small can dulce de leche

Directions:

1. Line a 9×13 pan with parchment paper and set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, whisk the melted butter and brown sugar together, until smooth. Beat in the eggs, vanilla, spices and salt. Switch to using a wooden spoon or spatula, and stir in the flour, until just combined. Gently stir in the M&Ms, until they’re evenly distributed throughout the batter.
3. Pour half of the batter into the prepared 9×13 pan, and spread it with a spoon/spatula to cover the surface. Scoop the dulce de leche into the pan, and spread that over the batter. Then, scoop the rest of the batter in small spoonfuls over the dulce de leche and gently spread it on top. It’s OK if a little bit mixes together, but you mainly want the top of the bars to be blondie batter.
4. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the bars are set in the middle, being mindful not to over-bake the blondies. Allow the blondies to fully cool on a cooling rack before cutting/serving.