Almond & Orange Shortbread Bars with Poppy Seed Jam
With all the crazy shit going on in the world, and all the holiday deals being thrown at you on Instagram, it’s so easy to forget what the holidays are really all about: binge eating. Not just any kind of binge eating! Save the tub of crappy Edy’s ice cream for a regular emotional eating session. This is the season for eating all the holiday cookies—the linzers and the (in our families) weird Italian Christmas cookies and the heavenly hash and the crinkle cookies and the ginger snaps. Santa is weak but I am strong and I will finish any plate of cookies you put in front of me.
I’m gonna be honest, I’m not even normally that interested in desserts really! Beau always says I’m lying about that and he’s maybe correct, but even if I am I have never denied that cookies are an exception. Something about the buttery crispy crusty aspect just lights a fire in my stomach. So I more or less lost my shit drooling when our friend Ben over at the LA Times released his recent series 12 Days of Holiday Cookies, in which he dumped twelve gorgeous cookie recipes all at once and somehow expected me to stay calm about it. Ha. It was like Beyonce’s self titled surprise visual album drop of 2013 but in cookie form.
Deciding which recipe to try was not easy and I fought really hard to convince Beau we should just try them all, but “no” that’s “not necessary” and “we would eat them all” as if that’s a bad thing. So we narrowed it down to this shortbread bar baby, with its jam layer and its crumble and its beautiful sprinkle situation—I had to try it. We’ve mentioned before on here that of the two of us, Beau is the more experienced baker, and I’m always working to improve in that area. This seemed like a slightly more challenging (and therefore fun) recipe to tackle for someone like me. You’ve basically got three major phases here: 1. making the dough and parbaking half of it, 2. making the jam, 3. assembling, grating the remaining dough on top, and baking the whole thing.
So yeah, the “crumble” on top is actually just the cookie dough but grated, so you’re only making one batch of dough and then using it two different ways in one cookie! Very ~ cool ~ in my opinion. Check out the full recipe below and make sure to check out the masterpiece that is Ben’s 12 Days of Holiday Cookies!
Almond and Orange Shortbread Bars with Poppy Seed Jam
Recipe pulled directly from Ben Mims at LA Times
Ingredients
Dough:
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Finely grated zest of 3 clementines or 1 large navel orange
2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
4 cups packed superfine almond flour (1 1/4 pounds; 590 grams)
Filling:
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup poppy seeds, finely ground (see Baker’s Note)
1/2 cup clementine or orange juice
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Zest of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Blue pearl or sanding sugar, silver dragées and white pearly dragées, to garnish
Instructions
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-by-13-inch metal baking pan, line the bottom and two long sides with a sheet of parchment paper and grease the paper as well.
In a large bowl, combine the butter, sugar, baking powder, salt, vanilla, zest and egg yolks and beat on medium speed of a mixer until fluffy, about 3 minutes (see Baker’s Note). Add the almond flour and beat on low speed until just combined.
Scoop half the dough into the prepared baking pan and use your hands to press it evenly over the bottom. Place the baking pan in the oven and bake until light golden brown at the edges, about 15 minutes. Scoop the other half of the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic and refrigerate while the base bakes and you make the filling, at least 1 hour. Once the base is ready, transfer the baking pan to a rack and let cool to room temperature.
While the cookie base bakes, make poppy seed jam: In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, poppy seeds, juice, butter, salt and lemon zest and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook, stirring often, until thickened like bubbling lava, 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the vanilla and let the jam cool to room temperature.
Once the ball of dough has chilled, remove it from the refrigerator. Spread the jam onto the par-baked cookie base, leaving a half-inch border on each edge. Gently grate the chilled dough on the large holes of a box grater while holding the grater directly over the poppy seed jam. Gently spread the grated dough into an even layer. Sprinkle the dough with blue, silver, and white sugars.
Bake until the top is golden brown in spots on top and the cookie base is fully set, about 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and let the bars cool completely in the pan.
Use the overhanging parchment paper to lift the bars out of the pan and transfer to a cutting board. Cut into 24 squares and sprinkle with more colored sugars, if you like.
Make ahead: The cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
Baker’s note: The poppy seeds need to be ground to make them easy to incorporate into a filling, so use a simple spice or coffee grinder (Clean it first!) to grind the poppy seeds to a powder before using. And make sure you buy a new bottle of poppy seeds — they go rancid very quickly, so that old container from when you first moved into your house a decade ago? Time to say goodbye. And if using a stand mixer, use a rubber spatula to scrape the bottom of the bowl and the paddle after beating the butter and sugar together and after the dough is mixed to ensure the ingredients are evenly mixed throughout.
Thanks so much for stopping by the blog, and happy holidays!
xoxo Matt