02/03/2011

Zesty Lemon and Raspberry Jamwiches

I saw this beautiful entry anecdotesandapples.weebly.com/1/post/2011/01/strawberry-jamwiches.html about Monet’s Grandmother and her Strawberry Jamwiches. The story is beautiful and inspiring, just how food should be. There’s something about certain dishes, their story and the beautiful artistry of cooking that not just Chefs have but everyone who makes something that means something to them. This is an example of one of those beautiful stories. Thank you Monet for sharing this with everyone and I wanted to pay a little homage to the beautiful innocents these cookie bars showed me.

Please Enjoy Monet’s wonderful Food blog
http://anecdotesandapples.weebly.com/

She’s truly an inspiring person and Baker. Thank you Monet!

Zesty Lemon and Raspberry Jamwiches adapted from Monet’s Strawberry Jamwiches

I decided to adapt this bar to a couple of flavor profiles that I adore. Raspberry and Lemon. When I thought about this beautiful shortbread cookie bar I thought to myself something about raspberry and lemon was screaming at me to make them that way. As with any recipe that I see I try and take inspiration from the pages of whatever I look at and make it something I identify with. There really wasn’t much I needed or wanted to change from this recipe. It was a really simple delicious straight forward cookie bar.

The reason I made these was my sister was having a surprise baby shower last Sunday. The story was that we were supposed to be going to a friend of hers house warming party. If I didn’t make anything for the party it would be just unacceptable for me, so I was so busy on my lap top which my sister was going to use. I wanted to keep her off the internet so she wouldn’t check her registry for the baby because then she would probably know something was going on seeing as no one really knew she was registered yet. So I was using my computer and she fell asleep. Whoa close one. So I made these beautiful buttery wonderful cookie bars. I used very coarsely chopped almonds which gave a nice varying texture in the cookie bar with the sticky seedy warm jam and the light touch of lemon zest.

The Stuff

3/4 cup butter at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1 cup almonds, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup raspberry preserves/jam
pinch of salt
3/4 of a small lemon zested

The Way

Preheat oven to 350 Grease a 9’9 pan with butter and set aside

In a stand mixer, or hand mixer or what you got place butter in and sugar and cream till fluffy

Then add vanilla, lemon zest leaving aside a small pinch for the top of crust, and egg mix till well incorporated

During this time sift together flour, baking powder, and salt
I only had whole allspice so i had to use a grinder if you have powdered skip the grinding

and then after that stir in almonds till incorporated well through out

With a wooden spoon mix the dry ingredients into the wet until everything is evenly incorporated this dough looks dry and kind of crumbly

In the greased pan place the dough inside and press it down with your fingers to form the crust but leave aside about ¼ of dough to place on top.

(i almost spread the jam before i took the picture woops)

Spread jam over the top of the crust evenly then add the dough chunks to the top of the jam and sprinkle over the top a little of the extra lemon zest