RECIPE: Peanut butter chocolate chip strawberry blondies.

These, ma dears, are something else.

I've never made anything like them really, but I'm sure glad I did.

You know when you're kind of making a recipe up, not sure how it's going to turn out, and then it ends up being even better than you hoped? Yeah, I love that. And that's exactly what happened here with these babies.

The texture mish-mash is top notch, if you ask me. Super squidgy thanks to the peanut butter and brown sugar, then the peanuts add a wonderful crunch, along with silky bursts of chocolate and strawberries.

And what with us being smack bang in the middle of British strawberry season (Wimbledon HOLLA) and me being home last weekend, I was feeling inspired. These blondies are salty and sweet with a beautiful slight tartness from the strawbs.

You might think it a slightly unusal flavour combo, but trust me, it totally works. Strawberries and peanut butter go together (there's a reason PB&J is an American classic), strawberries and chocolate are a match made in heaven, and chocolate and peanut butter together? Well, I don't think I need to explain that no-brainer.

So, thought I, why not whack these three wonderful flavours together!? BOOM!

Brownies and blondies simply have to be squidgy in my opinion. If they're not, they're cake. This is not cake. It is fudgy, squidgy, soft blondie goodness. With a slightly crisp golden brown top.

And guess what? As blondies go, these babies are relatively healthy. And here's why:

• They use whole wheat flour (but you can't even taste it)
• There's only a small amount of oil in them and no butter
• They're egg-free
• Peanut-butter is an energy-boosting 'good' fat
• Dark chocolate has health benefits
• Strawberries mean each blondie counts for one of your five-a-day.

OK, I may be being a tad optimistic on that last one.

These blondies are packed full of flavour and are beautifully soft and squidgy. Almost like fudge. Really, they're a bit of a dream.

I made nine squares.

Ingredients

185g crunchy peanut butter

50ml sunflower oil

90g light brown muscovado sugar

60ml almond milk (regular would be fine too)

2 tsp vanilla extract

125g wholewheat flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

50g plain chocolate chips

100g strawberries, chopped into little pieces

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line an 18x18cm square baking tin with foil, making sure there's enough hanging over the sides to easily remove the blondies.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the peanut butter, oil, and brown sugar.

3. Stir in the milk and vanilla extract, followed by the flour, salt and baking powder. Mix it all together - it should be thick, don't worry. Fold in the chocolate chips and chopped strawberries, mixing only until they're evenly distributed.

4. Pour or spoon the mix into the baking dish and press it into place, smoothing the top as best you can.

5. Bake for around 30 minutes, until the edges and top are just turning golden brown. Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely in the tin - if you're impatient like me you can speed this up by popping the tin in the fridge for half an hour or so.

6. Slice into squares of yumness and enjoy that squidgy, crunchy, peanut buttery, chocolatey, strawberry-y goodness.