You absolutely can, though I think raisins are better in a moist carrot cake muffin. There's already enough chewiness in the bar cookie here, so any contrast from a chewy raisin will probably be lost. I say that as a raisin fan; far too many people are not raisin fans. If you want to win friends, skip the raisins.

Carrot Cake Blondies: Great Cookie Bars for Spring

Description

Get all the taste of carrot cake in a bar cookie form. Topped with swizzles of cream cheese frosting over a chewy, spiced up bar filled with carrot shreds, white chocolate, coconut, and walnuts, these bars will give you all the Spring feels of proper carrot cake without the stress or mess of cake decorating.

Ingredients

Scale

Cooking spray, for the pan

Carrot cake batter

1 large carrot
1 stick butter (113 g)
1/3 cup powdered sugar (40 g)
1/3 cup light brown sugar (66 g)
1 teaspoon Chai spice blend, pumpkin pie spice, apple pie spice, or 3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon and ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 large whole egg plus 1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla paste
1 cup all-purpose flour (130 g)
1 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup coconut flakes
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1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Cream cheese frosting

2 oz cream cheese, softened (56 g)
6 Tablespoons powdered sugar (45 g)
2 Tablespoons butter (28 g)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract or paste

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Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350F (180 C).

Make the bars

Lightly spray an 8″x8″ pan with cooking spray, and then cut a piece of parchment
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to line the bottom and sides of one side. Spray over the top of this piece of parchment
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, then cut another one to go across the remaining 2 sides of the pan.
Grate the carrot over a piece of cheesecloth or paper towels. Wring out as much of the carrot juice as possible from the carrot. It’s important to get as much of the water as you can out of the carrot so that the carrots don’t make the batter soggy during baking. Set aside 1 Tablespoon of the carrot shreds for sprinkling over the finished bars.
Melt the butter over low heat in a small pan until the foam starts to subside and there are brown flecks in the bottom of the pan. On low heat, this will take about 10 minutes.
While the butter is browning, fill the bottom of a double boiler
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with about 1″ of water, then bring it to a boil.
Use a whisk to mix the sugars, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, whole egg and the egg yolk in the top of a double boiler
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.
Lower the water to simmer, then set the top pot over the water, stirring constantly for about 4 minutes. In this time, the mixture will get thinner, paler, and all of the sugar will dissolve.
Once the butter has browned, set it in a mixing bowl to cool slightly.
Whisk the egg/sugar mix into the butter. If it splits, keep whisking. As it cools, it will come back together. Add in the vanilla.
Allow the butter mix to cool until it’s thick and no longer warm to the touch. It will be noticeably thicker and glossy.
Fold in the flour with a baking spatula
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until the flour disappears.
Quickly fold in 3/4 cup of the white chocolate chips, the coconut, 1/3 cup of the chopped walnuts, and the carrot shreds.
Smooth the mixture in the pan.
Scatter the rest of the white chocolate chips over the top of the bars.
Bake for 18-20 minutes until the edges are browning and the middle is just barely no longer jiggling.

Ice the blondies

Beat all the ingredients together into a smooth thick icing.
Fill a disposable pastry bag or plastic bag with the icing.
Cut the tip of the bag off, then pipe criss-crossing lines over the tops of the bars. Sprinkle the bars with a little more grated carrot and the leftover walnuts.
Serve the bars chilled for the best flavor.
Store bars in a lidded container in the fridge for up to 5 days.