My husband prefers blondies to brownies.

I can’t explain it. It defies logic.

And yet, here we are.

I didn’t know this about him until fairly recently. I guess he needed to know I was really locked in to our marriage before he would admit to choosing not-chocolate over chocolate.

It’s such a shocking admission that I guess I can see why he would wait nearly 10 years to confess it.

And, of course, after I recovered from the blow, I began to look for a good blondie recipe.

The first one I tried contained a tremendous amount of brown sugar. The texture was amazing: dense, with a satisfying chew.

But it was so, so sweet. Too sweet to eat warm from the pan, actually, and that was a problem for me.

If I’m making something sweet, I’m probably not in the mood to wait for the next day to eat it.

Over the course of this past football season, I tried several more recipes, almost one per home game. All were fine — good, even.

But again, if I’m making something from scratch, I am looking for something more than just good. I am listening for that involuntary “mmm” to escape my tasters’ lips as they bite into it.

So I returned to that original recipe, and it did not disappoint.

But then last week I wanted to take something to a friend for her birthday.

This same friend had stepped into my classroom a few days before and said, “Did you know that white chocolate isn’t really chocolate?”

I said, “Because it doesn’t have any cacao in it, right?”

She said, “Yeah. It’s just sugar. And fat. I guess that’s why it tastes so good.”

Was she admitting to me, right there in front of God and everybody, AND before committing to 10 years of marriage to me, that she prefers white chocolate to real chocolate? Would she then prefer a blondie to a brownie?!?

I wasn’t sure. But I knew that something with white chocolate in it would be a hit, and I knew the recipe with all the brown sugar in it would probably be far too sweet with white chocolate in it as well.

So I googled for a recipe involving browned butter.

Why browned butter?

Well, if you know, you know. And if you have to ask, you haven’t tried it yet.

Browned butter belongs in everything: Rice Krispies treats. Cookies.

And definitely, most definitely, these blondies.

This one is it: the one recipe to rule them all.

BROWNED BUTTER BLONDIES (ADAPTED FROM LAND O’LAKES)

Ingredients
3/4 cup salted butter
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans, toasted (optional; I omit)
1 cup white baking chips (optional)

Directions
■ Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
■ Brown the butter: in a saucepan with a pale interior, melt the butter. (Do not use a pan with a dark interior; you will not be able to tell when to remove the butter from the heat.) Allow the butter to foam up. Do not get distracted at this point and leave. Butter solids can turn from brown to black in an instant, and Lord knows you’ll never forgive me if I cause you to waste a stick and a half of butter. So stay with it, stirring the foam away so you can see the color of the butter. As soon as it turns brown, remove it from the heat. Allow to sit until it reaches room temperature. I did this step early in the night and left it to cool for about an hour. You can speed the process up by placing it in the fridge for about 15 minutes.
■ Prepare a 13-by-9-inch pan by lining it with parchment paper or foil or by greasing it.
■ Add brown sugar, eggs and vanilla extract to the cooled butter. (I did this right in the pot I had used to melt it.) Add flour, baking soda and salt. Stir by hand just until combined. Add any mix-ins, if using. (If you’d like to have some pieces with mix-ins and some without, wait on this step and instead sprinkle them like toppings over the batter just before baking.)
■ Spread batter evenly over bottom of pan. Batter will be thick and may resist spreading. Use freshly washed, still-wet fingers to spread the batter out if necessary.
■ If you want a variety of toppings, add those now. (I added white chocolate chips to half of the pan and semisweet chocolate chips to the other half. I will admit that the white chocolate was much better in these.)
■ Bake for 19-23 minutes. Allow to cool at least enough so you won’t burn your mouth before eating.

Amelia Plair is a mom and high school teacher in Starkville. Email reaches her at [email protected].

Amelia Plair is a Starkville resident who writes occasional food columns.