I love oats. I love condensed milk. I love blondies. This adaptation of a Nigella Kitchen recipe is a universally-pleasing treat at any time of day and night and I tell myself  – plus anyone else who happens to be around – it’s pretty healthy, given the high proportion of oats (cue a sceptical look from my sister).

I once made a batch of Nigella blondies, out of her Domestic Goddess book, on Boxing Day, many years ago. I was so excited; my expectation levels were sky-high. But it just wouldn’t cook. After the allotted time it was completely raw in the middle. Not just desirably-squidgy as the recipe had promised, but liquid. And the more I cooked it, the darker and drier it got around the edges and STILL the middle wasn’t done. 

It took me 12 years to try again (I don’t recover quickly from such disappointment) and thankfully, this time it was a success! Such a success that I made another batch right after this one had been gobbled up. And frankly, these were even better, despite my forgetting a key ingredient. 

My reasons for this happy accident were two-fold. First, is my tendency to not re-read a recipe when I’m making it for the second time in quick succession, in stark contrast to my diligent approach to take 1.

Second is the fact that my daughter is not a toddler who loves to sleep. She wasn’t a baby who loved to sleep either, much to my astonishment. So I often find myself having to stop in the middle of cooking in the evening to settle her back to sleep (which most baking does not appreciate). On the night I was making the second batch of blondies, we were also making Nigella’s Express macaroni cheese and this took priority in the time slot after putting Joyce to bed. The creamed butter and sugar for the blondies sat waiting for my return, at which point dinner was nearly ready, so I chucked in the remaining ingredients and got the blondies into the oven. As it happened, we were all so full from the delicious ribs and macaroni cheese that no one wanted any blondies for pudding so they sat cooling in their tin until the following morning. I actually woke up thinking ‘I forgot to put an egg in the blondie mix!!’ (isn’t it strange the way the brain works?) and rushed downstairs to taste a bit, fully expecting it to be dry and mealy, but they were more squidge-alicious than batch 1 and tasted better!

Sadly the third batch I tried to make was even more disastrous than the blondies of Boxing Day all those years ago – another victim of baking ingredients lost in translation. This time, I accidentally used evaporated milk rather than condensed milk and there was no recovering the situation. The ingredients were ruined and the mixture had to go in the bin. The root of the problem in this case was my attempt make the blondies genuinely healthier by reducing the sugar content. I hadn’t realised that condensed milk (almost) always has sugar in it: I remembered recipes stating ‘sweetened condensed milk’, which I thought implied that unsweetened condensed milk also existed. In France the ‘sweetened’ part is prominent on the label, which led to me buying what I believed to be an unsweetened version, but in reality was evaporated milk. The difference in name is minimal in French, between ‘concentre’ and ‘condense’ …

You live and learn, and all that. In this case, the lesson seems to be that whilst occasionally a forgotten ingredient can improve a recipe, trying to make a recipe healthier is sometimes a complete failure.

Golden oat & chocolate chip blondies

Ingredients

• 200g regular oats (not jumbo or instant)
• 100g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 150g unsalted butter, room temperature
• 100g light muscovado sugar
• 1 x 397g tin (sweetened) condensed milk
• 170g dark chocolate chips

Method  

Preheat your oven to 180°C and line a 23cm square cake tin with baking paper.

Mix the oats, flour and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl.

Beat the butter and sugar together in a freestanding mixer or with electric beaters until pale and creamy. Then add the condensed milk and beat again and add the dry mix of oats, flour and bicarbonate of soda.

Finally, add the chocolate chips and fold in.

Spoon the batter into the prepared tin and level it off before popping it in the oven for 35 minutes.

The trick here is to take it out when the middle still feels a little liquid underneath the golden top and the edges are darker. Leave to cool completely in the tin before lifting it out and cutting into squares.