Viennese Almond Triangles

I will take advantage of my sleepless early, early mornings which seem to be the regular wake-up time this week. I sincerely hope they don´t last much longer and that at any moment, without notice, I´ll wake up after sleeping ten hours. Wouldn´t that be a nice change? I think so.

The thing about an upside-down inner clock, and not a good one, is that I have no rythm and don´t really take advantage of it. Since I´m not being very productive at early daybreak, I will keep this post short. So on to the actual bars.

I missed yesterday´s deadline of 12 Weeks of Christmas Treats, the group that Brenda created to gather many, many amazing ideas for those last weeks of the year.

These bars are a delight, a word which is very descriptive but a bit outdated. But they are, really. There´s a crisp shortbread-like base, a barely there layer of sour cherry jam, an almond topping that is sweet, crunchy with a hint of cinnamon taste and a honey chocolate drizzle that is just perfect. A delight.

An extra bonus here is that you get to use all those egg whites that you have left in the fridge. It´s the reason I originally made them. What? You didn´t make ice cream or a sweet dough for a fig or blueberry jam pie? Well, these almond triangles are good enough to crack open new eggs and have leftover yolks instead. Then you can go and make a pie.

VIENNESE ALMOND TRIANGLES

barely adapted from Sweet Miniatures, by Flo Braker

Note: be sure to use sliced almonds. I once tried it with chopped nuts and it was a completely different topping. It was good, but the texture was different. I line the pan with foil. Not the whole pan, just the long sides and bottom, this way it´s easier to unmold by just lifting the foil. But you can skip this step.

Ingredients

For the dough:

2 cups (280g) unsifted all-purpose flour

½ cup (100g) sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

6oz. (175g) unsalted butter, room tº

1 large egg

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

For the topping:

1/3 cup sour cherry jam

¾ cup (about 6 large) egg whites

2 ½ cups (185g) sliced almonds, toasted

1 ½ cups (300g) sugar

3 Tbs all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 Tbs light corn syrup

½ teaspoon almond extract

¼ teaspoon baking powder

Honey Chocolate Glaze (see recipe here)

Directions

For the dough:
In a large bowl, mix room tº butter with sugar. I use an electric hand mixer, just be sure not to over mix the dough or it will be tough. Add egg and vanilla and mix. Add flour and salt all at once and carefully mix just until blended. 

Line a 10x15-inch baking pan with 1-inch sides with parchment paper or aluminum foil.

Pat dough evenly on bottom of pan, flouring the tips of your fingers if needed.

Spread the 1/3 cup of cherry jam from the topping over the unbaked dough. Refrigerate while making topping.

For the topping:

Preheat oven to 350º.

Lightly toast almonds in oven for a few minutes. Watch them carefully so they don´t burn.

In a heavy bottomed medium saucepan, put egg whites, sugar, flour, cinnamon, syrup and mix well. Add almonds and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil for 3 minutes, stirring all the time to prevent scorching. The mixture will appear to stick anyway, but you´ll be fine if you stir it continuously.

Remove from heat, add extract and baking powder and pour over cold dough, creating an even layer.

Immediately put into the oven and bake for 20 minutes. It will puff up and turn golden. Let cool on a wire rack completely.

Cut into triangles or squares and drizzle with chocolate honey glaze if desired.