These Almond and Mincemeat Bars consist of two layers of delicious crumbly biscuit sandwiched together with sweet mincemeat and topped with crunchy flaked almonds.
Sandwich Biscuits Made Easy
Last weeks Sunken Pear and Chocolate Cake won me the accolade of Star Baker on both the GBBO Bloggers Challenge and GBBOTwitterBakeAlong, but I'm not going to win any prizes this week though. That's not to say that this weeks bake is not a good one. These Almond and Mincemeat Bars are not too sweet and seriously moorish, but I may have cheated a little for my GBBOBakeOff inspired bake this week. Contestants on the show were asked to create 24 sandwich biscuits. That is 48 identical biscuits sandwiched together with a filling. Well I was seriously strapped for time this week and sandwich biscuits do take a while to make, so true to the blogs name I thought, how can I make this recipe easy?
The answer is have two larger layers of biscuit sandwiched together and cut into individual biscuits. Technically its still a sandwich biscuit and although there are only 16 I could have made 24 but I wanted a good sized biscuit. And so you have it. This is my interpretation of the task made easy - Almond and Mincemeat Bars.
Almond and Mincemeat Bars
Ingredients
- 125 g butter softened
- 125 g golden caster sugar
- 1 egg seperated
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract
- 250 g plain flour
- 125 g ground almonds
- 300 g sweet mincemeat
- 50 g flaked almonds
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180℃ (170℃ fan)/350°F/gas mark 4.
- Place the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat until soft and well combined. Add the egg yolk and almond extract and most of the egg white. Beat to combine.
- Add the flour and ground almonds and mix to form a smooth dough.
- Divide into two pieces and roll out one half to fit a 20 x 30 cm (8 x 12in) cake tin.
- Spread the mincemeat over the pastry. Then roll out the remaining pastry and lightly press on top.
- Brush the top of the pastry with a little egg white, then sprinkle the almonds on top.
- Mark into 16 bars. Bake for about 25 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool slightly in the tin before removing to a wire rack to cool.
Nutrition
Step by Step Almond and Mincemeat Bars
Hints, Tips and Variations
- If you do not have the correct size tin, roll out the pastry to the same size and place in a baking sheet. Cover with mincemeat but do not spread right to the very edge of the dough. Cover with remaining dough and chill for at least 30 minutes before marking into bars and baking.
- You may find it easier to roll the pastry between two sheets of cling film or baking parchment.
- I used my homemade mincemeat which is less sweet than shop bought mincemeat. If you do not have any consider adding some lemon juice or chopped apple to make the shop bought mince meat less sweet tasting.
- You can vary the filling. Raspberry jam or lemon curd would be delicious.
More Biscuits Made Easy
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Helen says
these look great, and a fab idea to make biscuits in a shorter space of time - they look like a cross between an almond slice & a garibaldi!
Jacqueline Bellefontaine says
Iam all for making life easier and saving time so long as the flavour is still there. They reminded me a bit of garibaldi biscuits to but the biscuit is much softer and crumbly.
Anne says
mmm I'm definitely pinning these. I normally only have mincemeat at Christmas time but I do love it, i guess buying some a little earlier to make these biscuits would be a good idea, I love the sound of mincemeat and almonds, yummy!
#GBBOBloggers2017
Jacqueline Bellefontaine says
I think mincemeat is great all year round but of course Christmas would not be Christmas with ouy it. Why not make your own mincemeat it s less sweet and much nicer and I have a recipe on the bog 🙂
jenny paulin says
these would be perfect for Christmas (LOL now you will need to forgive me too) and I have also pinned this to my Christmas food board! I have some mincemeat in my cupboard, so these could well be made at some point! I am still thinking about adapting your pear cake from last week into an apple one!
Anyway, these look delicious and I would be happy to have one or two, and they will be fab for a festive coffee morning too! x]
thank you for linking to #GBBOBloggers2017 x
Jacqueline Bellefontaine says
You're not the first person to mention the C word and yes they would be great for Christmas too. Thanks for pinning.
Angela / Only Crumbs Remain says
What a great idea Jacqui! I know just what you mean about how long sandwich cookies/biscuits take to make, although the bake of our cookies was only 10 minutes, I had to batch bake them which ended up taking quite some time all told! These lookabsolutely glorious and a lovely flavour combo, they'd be perfect for the run up to Christmas too 🙂 (Heck I can't quite believe i mentioned Christmas - though can you believe I saw a foodie mag today dedicated to Christmas!!)
Angela x
Jacqueline Bellefontaine says
Hi Angela I will forgive you the C word as these would indeed make a lovely alternative to mince pies. And yes I can believe there is a magazine out already although Im still refusing to think about it even for the blog..
Rebecca Beesley says
almonds and mincemeat - yum - two of my fave flavours! #gbbobloggers2017
Jacqueline Bellefontaine says
It certainly is a nice flavour combo.