Cacao and Cherry Rye Blondies

These Rye Blondies are the grown-up version of your classic bake sale favorite! We're swapping some of the typical blondie ingredients for ones you can feel better about feeding yourself and your family. We used Ghirardelli 100% Cacao Unsweetened Chocolate Premium Baking Chips, which have no added sugar, to provide a bitter cacao note. What we love most about the Ghirardelli 100% Cacao Chocolate Chips is that they act as a blank chocolate canvas so you can control the level and type of sweetness in any recipe. Here, dried cherries work with and balance the cacao chips for a pop of tart sweetness.

These blonde beauties get their earthiness from whole grain rye flour and ghee, and a subtle toffee flavor from unrefined muscovado sugar (just think of it like brown sugar’s sophisticated older sister). Ghee is a shelf-stable product made by heating and removing the milk solids from standard cow’s milk butter. We like baking with it because it can be left out at room temperature, so it'll be softened and ready to go when you need it! This small-batch recipe is baked in a loaf pan and intended to make 8 blondies, but it can easily be doubled and baked in an 8” square brownie pan to make 16.  Sprinkle with flaky sea salt before baking for a perfectly balanced bite.