Raspberry Jam White Chocolate Almond Bars

It's a ridiculously long name for these bar cookies but when you taste them, they will Knock. Your. Socks. Off.  These are my favorite holiday cookie and one of my favorite Things To Do with a Jar of Jam.

This year Lily wanted them for her birthday cake.   Her birthday [which was on the 23rd] is the official kick-off of our holidays.  Our holiday baking starts that day and goes through New Year's Day, which is why I'm posting so many recipes lately.  

I hope you can find a moment to make even a half batch of these.   You'll love them. 

I used some of my own black raspberry jam for these.   You could substitute out a different kind if you like.   I was thinking about how good it would be with cherry jam.  Or apricot jam.  Or a chunky apple jam.   Mmmmm.  [Or marmalade...?]


Raspberry Jam White Chocolate Almond Bars
www.rurification.com

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups butter
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
4 cups flour
2 eggs
1 pint red or black raspberry jam [Or cherry jam, or apricot, or chunky apple jam.]
1 cup white chocolate chips [vanilla chips]
4 oz slivered almonds

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine sugar, butter, salt and vanilla.  Cream together.   Add flour one cup at a time and beat until crumbly.   Remove 1 cup of this mixture and set aside.   Add eggs, one at a time to the rest of the mixture and beat well into a dough.   Press the dough evenly into a 13 x 9 pan.   Bake for 25 minutes or until lightly browned.   Remove from oven.

Spread jam evenly over hot crust.  Sprinkle white chocolate chips evenly over the jam.  Sprinkle the almonds evenly on top.    Evenly crumble the rest of the crust mix that you had set aside on top of everything.   Return to oven and bake for another 25 minutes until lightly golden.  Cool completely, then cut into bars. 

Ricotta Almond Pear Jam Tart

A few days ago I gave you a recipe for a savory ricotta tart.  I figured we needed a sweet one to balance out the universe.  Also, I wanted to show you another of my Things to do with a Jar of Jam.

I have a lot of jars of jam.  It's important to eat them with something other than toast.  Not that I'm knocking toast.  I love toast.   Or better yet, fried bread.  Or better yet, just me, the jar and a spoon.   It's been known to happen.

At any rate, sometimes those homey jars of jam like to go out with someone other than Peanut Butter. They like to get dressed up and taken out for a night on the town. Because there's a little tart in every jar of jam. 

This is just such a recipe. It's fast and easy, especially if you use a store bought crust.  You can do the graham cracker crust thing or the regular pie crust thing.  I made a regular pie crust for this one. 

Ricotta Almond Pear Jam Tart
www.rurification.com

• 1 pie crust - either the regular kind or the graham cracker kind.
• 30 oz container of ricotta cheese [or thereabouts]
• 8 oz. can of almond paste
• 1/4 cup sugar [optional]
• 1 can sliced pears, well drained
• 1 jar of jam, 8 oz.  any flavor that you like.  We used Cherry Orange Jam.

Blend the cheese, almond paste and sugar together well.  You can use a food processor or immersion blender or whatever.   The almond paste is kind of thick, so if you're going at this by hand, then take a minute to break it up before you mix it with the cheese.  

Line a tart dish with your pie crust.   Put in the cheese filling.   Arrange the pears in a circle around the top of the filling.   Loosen the jam with a fork so that it's easy to pour - add a bit of juice or water if you need to thin it out.  You can heat it for a bit  if you have to.  Pour the jam over the top of the tart.  Make it pretty.

Bake at 350 for 60 minutes or until golden. Use a lower rack to get a golden bottom. 

Cool completely for a firm texture. 

This is fantastic served room temperature as dessert or cold for breakfast.  Or a snack.   Or a blogging break. 

I'm thinking you can use just about any type of jam on this and it would be A. Maz. Ing.

Jammy Oatcakes with Chocolate

Confession:  I kind of got into a groove with these Jammy Oatcakes.   

They're fast.  They're easy. They're fun. They don't involve snow.

Plus, we kept thinking of new combinations. And we had to try every single one of them.  


And they were sooooo good. 

Especially these cherry almond ones.   And then we put some chocolate chips in them and the angels sang and all was right with the world, even with the snow. 


Cherry Almond Chocolate Chip Jammy Oatcakes
www.rurification.com

• 3 cups oatmeal
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup finely chopped almonds
• Handful of dried cherries [optional]
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup cherry jam
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup mini chocolate chips

Heat the oven to 350.

Melt the butter, jam, milk and vanilla in the microwave until soft.   I heated it for 1 minute in our microwave and it worked fine.   The butter was soft, but not completely melted.  That's fine.

Mix the oats, flour, salt, cherries and almonds in a mixer while the wet stuff is warming.  Don't add the chocolate chips yet.  Then add the wet stuff and mix it all together thoroughly.

Once everything has been mixed up, make sure it's not too warm.  You don't want to melt the chocolate chips when you're mixing them in the dough.   When the dough is cool enough, mix the chocolate chips in quickly.

Use an ice cream scoop to measure the cakes.   Pack the scoop hard and then pop them out onto a cookie sheet. [You don't have to grease the cookie sheet].   Flatten the cakes a bit with a fork.  Mine were 2 " rounds after I flattened them a bit.

Bake for 15 minutes if you want to eat them hot.  [They hold together better for eating warm and they are fabulous for breakfast!]

Bake for 10 minutes if you want to let them cool and eat them later.  [They'll finish drying as they cool].

Makes 20 cakes, 2" rounds.