Saturday, March 5, 2011

Bake! Golden almond bars


This week's Bake! recipe was my pick...I've been eyeing the golden almond bars ever since I first opened this book.

I made the sweet tart dough early this morning. It was easy to mix in the food processor: flour, salt, baking powder, butter, and eggs. I seem to have the same problem with NM's tart dough recipes every time...he doesn't call for extra water to be added, but I always have to put some in to get my dough to form a ball. This time, I added a little under a teaspoon of water, and that seemed perfect.

The dough was easy to roll out, but I had a hard time getting it to be big enough without the dough ripping. Finally I realized that I was using my giant jelly roll pan, which was way too big. So I sized down to my smaller jelly roll and the dough fit perfectly.

I lightly toasted 3 1/2 cups of slivered almonds while I made the topping: unsalted butter, sugar, light brown sugar, dark corn syrup, salt, and heavy cream.

Right after sliding the pan into the oven, I went back to the cookbook and re-read the notes. Which is when I realized that these are supposed to be made in a 9x3x2...in other words, my cake pan! No wonder I had such a challenging time getting the dough and the toppings to fit...AND no wonder the bars seemed so thin compared to the picture in the book.

No worries, they turned out fine. Well, actually we did have one major worry...after our first taste, hubby and I began to worry that we'd eat the whole pan! These are dangerously good.

4 comments:

  1. Will be making these this weekend - have to make sure I'll have the right pan ;o)

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  2. I have had my eye on those since I got the book as well. I wanted to make them then with you but I could not find slivered almonds at the store and they are still out of them...hope to make a stop at Trader Joe's this week so I can make them for the weekend. Great pick! So, did you eat the whole pan of them? ;-)

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  3. We loved these, too! They were dangerously good. Love your photo.

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