Friday Brownie Bites, Sunday Blondie Bites

Those who know me well know I think far too much. So when my church small group decided to make cookies to help people stay awake for six hours of Bible teaching Friday night at a Secret Church simulcast, my mind went crazy thinking of ways to let Easter symbolism, along with butter and sugar, be the inspiration of my confections.

I couldn’t quite fit the full symbolic explanation onto the note card that labeled my baked goods at Secret Church, but the ever-gifted expositor David Platt’s teaching on the complexity and mystery of crucifixion and salvation took to all 50,00 of us listening to spiritual depths even my over-thinking mind had never been.

Friday Brownie Bites
I put my mini muffin tins to work by making uber-chocolatey brownie bites (no mint icing this time). They’re dark and heavy, just as was the sorrow of the mocking and brutality Christ humbly took on Friday. But chocolate is also really good, you know, like Good Friday—the beauty of the love God so showed by putting all the sins anyone ever does or thinks on his son and by sacrificing him for crazy humans like me that will never ever, ever even begin to measure up to his goodness and grace.

Sunday Blondie Bites
Likewise, I made light and bright-colored blondies to contrast the beauty and hope of Sunday with the dark despair of Friday.

Over the past few months I’ve been contemplating just what hope and power there is in a God who raises a very dead, very buried man to life again and what hope I can take in knowing he is shaping my life and whatever crazy things are going in the world. It’s that hope that pastel-colored peanut butter eggs stuffed into buttery cookie dough represent.

As I’ve walked with friends through periods of waiting and waiting and waiting for a job (thanks, economy), a move, life direction, healing—just as people were waiting and waiting for the first Easter Sunday—God has so revealed “Sunday” moments with direction in unexpected ways, gifts that point so obviously to their giver. In dark times, I always like to think on: “It’s Friday, but Sunday is coming.”

Truthfully, these were a case of desperation leads to innovation. I simply wanted to make “Sunday” cookies with pastel Easter M&Ms, but they were nowhere to be found. Reese’s Pieces eggs were the next best thing on the Easter candy aisle, and even without chocolate, they were quite delectable like the Blondies with Reese I based them off of.

Blondie Bites with Reese’s Pieces Eggs

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 package Reese’s pieces eggs (or substitute Reese’s pieces the rest of the year)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease mini muffin pan tins.

In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugars until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Add flour and salt; stir just until moistened. Fill the tin so that each muffin spot is about three-quarters full. Press two to three eggs onto the top of each blondie bite.

Bake until top of cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 13-18 minutes. Let cool for five minutes, and then remove bites from the tins to cool completely.