My First Recipe

I've never made anything that wasn't someone else's recipe. Especially in baking. I'm too scared to make any adjustments, for fear that it'll be a flop - and a waste of perfectly good butter, eggs and sugar. But yesterday I fiddled. I wanted to make an apricot almond cobbler, but the friend I was making it for felt that was too heavy - with the ice cream and all - for the occasion she was hosting, so she requested bars. Hmmm. I set to work. Well, I found an amazing looking Austrian Shortbread Recipe, and adapted that. I added almond paste to the dough. My husband's not big on the crunch of nuts, and even though my trusted friend, Lisi, told me not to mess with dough, I did. I needed to use that $7 tube of almond paste. So, here's the recipe. I think it's officially mine, since I changed 3 vital elements of the original recipe. People at the party flipped for these. The lemon and apricot flavors were just a step above the mild almond base in the dough, and the texture just sang in our mouths.


"Graduation Bars" or "Rachel's Almond Apricot Bars"

7 oz almond paste
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened
4 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tbsp lemon zest

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups apricot preserves, slightly heated and whisked, then brought to room temp.
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar

In an electric mixer, with paddle attachment, mix almond paste and sugar on lowest speed for about a minute. Place a towel over mixer (to avoid bits flying out) and increase speed just a bit. After a few minutes, check to see that most of the paste has been incorporated with the sugar. Small beads of paste are okay.
At lowest speed, add the butter by tablespoonfuls, then increase to medium speed and beat until creamy and fluffy (about 4 mins). Add the egg yolks and mix well. Scrape down bowl. Add the vanilla and lemon zest and mix well.
Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Add to the butter mixture and mix just until incorporated and the dough starts to come together. With the spatula, fold the dough over by hand to finish incorporating any remaining bits of flour, and bring the dough to its final stage. Spoon the dough out onto sheets of plastic wrap, to form two logs. Freeze at least 2 hours or overnight.
Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
Remove one log of dough from the freezer and coarsely grate it by hand or with the grating disk in a food processor into the bottom of a 9×13-inch baking pan. Make sure the surface is covered evenly with shreds of dough.
With a piping bag with a wide tip or a zip-lock bag with the corner cut off, squeeze the jam over the surface as evenly as possible, to within 1/2 inch of the edge all the way around. Remove the remaining dough from the freezer and coarsely grate it over the entire surface.
Bake until lightly golden brown and the center no longer wiggles, 50 to 60 minutes. As soon as the shortbread comes out of the oven, dust with confectioners’ sugar.
Cool on a wire rack, then chill in fridge for about an hour before cutting into squares.