Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Blondies

Today is my first pumpkin recipe of the season.  I have to say, I LOVE pumpkin, but I hate the hype around it.  To be honest, I couldn't buy the pumpkin spice blend from Trader Joes' just because I'm against what it represents.  No doubt, pumpkin is absolutely delicious in sweet and savory dishes, but it's been way overhyped over the last few years.  So here we go with my first pumpkin recipe of the season - chocolate chip pumpkin blondies.  Oh baby these are absolutely delicious.  When I looked at other pumpkin blondie recipes, there was a ton of butter and sugar in them, so I healthified things up a little by cutting the butter and sugar in half.  I was a little nervous that they wouldn't taste quite right, but with all the chocolate chips, these blondies were absolutely perfect.  Just like most sweets recipes, the recipes I was originally looking at called for way more sugar than was necessary.  So a quick swap out for coconut sugar & halving the amount made this recipe way healthier than the original it was based off.

Total Time: 55 minutes

Servings: 9 blondies

Ingredients:

2 1/3 cup all purpose or whole wheat flour

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup coconut sugar

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

1, 15oz cup of pumpkin puree

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F and line a 9x9" baking pan with parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, mix flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda and salt and set aside.
3. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar together until fully incorporated.  Add egg and vanilla and stir.
4. Add flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir just until combined.  Lightly fold in chocolate chips.
5. Add batter mixture to the baking pan and bake for 40-45 minutes, until the outside is lightly browned and firm and the middle passes the toothpick test.
6. Allow to cool for 10 minutes on a cooling rack before cutting.