If you love chocolate, then you probably love brownies. It’s true: brownies are one of the most popular dessert items in the country. But did you know that brownies have a golden-hued alter-ego made without any chocolate? Blonde brownies, or “blondies,” are less popular than typical chocolate brownies, but if you’ve ever tasted their sweet, buttery goodness, then you’d agree that the prejudice is completely unjustified!   This may surprise you, but historical cookbooks have shown that blondies were actually created before brownies. The essential ingredients in blondies are butter and brown sugar—the same components of butterscotch, which was a popular confection in the mid-19^th century. Old recipes have shown that these ingredients were sometimes mixed with flour, which—ta da!—gives you none other than a blondie!   Brownies, on the other hand, didn’t appear until the tail-end of the 19^th century, and the first brownie recipe can be traced back to The Boston Cooking School Cookbook in 1906.   It wasn’t until the 1950s that blondies were first referred to as “blonde brownies,” and maybe that was their downfall. Labeled from then on as just an alternative version of the beloved brownie, blondies were doomed to a fate of declining recognition in favor of their more chocolatey opponent.   Both blondies and brownies, however, are unique and delicious in their own way. While brownies are perfect for chocolate lovers, blondies offer that same dense, fudgy texture with the subtle sweetness of brown sugar and a light, buttery flavor. They can even be enhanced with chocolate chips or nuts.   So who wins this dessert death match? With such excellence on both sides, I think we’ll have to call it a draw!