The recipe for these apple and jam bars uses almond flour. I made this from scratch using my KitchenAid Blender.
Today’s inspirational recipe from Lavender and Lime ♥ Apple And Jam Bars ♥ #LavenderAndLime Share on X
Once again I was only going to make half of the recipe and I was not so keen on spending R117 for 350g of almond flour when I only needed 22.5 grams. I cannot believe how expensive this ingredient is. Because of this, I decided to take blanched almonds and blitz them in my Kitchen Aid blender until they were as fine as the flour available in stores. I am not sure if this worked out cheaper, but it did mean that I don’t have another ingredient hanging around waiting to be used sometime in the far distant future. As I consider myself quite adept at making pastry and usually use my touch to get the consistency correct I could feel something was wrong. When testing Sam’s recipe for apple and blueberry jam bars I was not very happy with the pastry. I thought it was quite sticky, but I didn’t want to mess with the ingredients as the purpose is to test the recipe as is. I ended up squishing the pastry into a loaf pan and even though it was wetter than I thought it should be, the bars were really tasty. We had half the first night with custard, as a dessert, and the rest the following day with cream to go with our coffee. When I make these again I will try and make a drier pastry to see if the texture changes the base somewhat, as these were quite soft.
Apple And Jam Bars
Ingredients
for the filling
- 1 apple of your choice, peeled and diced
- 1/2 orange, zest and juice
- 25 g fructose
- 125 g berry jam (I used Wild Blueberry)
- 25 g flaked almonds
for the pastry
- 150 g flour
- 22 g almond flour
- 85 g fructose
- 125 g chilled butter, cubed
- 1/2 orange, zest only, finely grated
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180° Celsius
- Line a loaf tin with baking paper
for the filling
- Place the apple, zest, juice and fructose into a small saucepan
- Bring to a boil over a medium to high temperature
- Reduce the heat and simmer for 8 minutes
- Set aside to cool
for the pastry
- Place all of the pastry ingredients into the bowl of a food processor
- Pulse until it just forms a dough, making sure not to overmix
to assemble
- Once the apples have cooled, add the jam
- Mix well to combine
- Scoop out two-thirds of the pastry dough and press into the base of the tin
- Place the apple mixture on top of the pastry dough
- Drop pieces of the remaining pastry dough over the top of the apple mixture
- Scatter the almonds on top
- Bake for 45 minutes
- Remove from the oven and set aside to cool in the tin
- Cut into bars and store in an air tight container
Notes
Click on the links for conversions and notes.
Disclosure: I was sent the book to review by Penguin Random House South Africa and this recipe formed part of the review and is published with permission. This post is in line with my blogging policy.
What I blogged September 21:
- one year ago – Thursday’s Children
- two years ago – Kiwi, Banana And Strawberry Smoothie
- three years ago – Poppy
- four years ago – Curry Plant
- five years ago – Pasta With Shallot, Sausage And Cherry Tomatoes
I adore bar cookies with fruit and these look absolutely amazing! Would love to have one of these with an afternoon tea!
These are perfect for tea time 🙂
this is so my kind of sweet – sweet but not too sweet.
Mine too Rachel 🙂
Almonds are indeed very expensive, the flour is prohibitive here too…We also made a cake this weekend with it, I also was shocked by the price tag!
I am going to see how much cheaper it is to make your own 🙂
Good idea making your own Tandy! Wet and sticky pastries can be really hard to handle.
Like you, I don’t want to end up with 100’s of ingredients languishing around 🙂
First, Tandy these bars look amazing on their own – with custard they must have been truly decadent! Love that you blitzed almonds to make almond flour – I do the same with pecans and pistachios and almonds too – it works out cheaper for me.
That is such a great idea Shashi 🙂
These sound very lovely! look yummy too!
Thanks Lynn 🙂
These apple and jam bars look perfect with a cup of tea. I think I’ll use wild blueberry like you did. And agreed, almond flour is so pricy where I live too!
I am sort of glad to hear that South Africa is not the only place it is pricey 🙂
I’m not really a bar person, but this looks delicious.
Thanks Kia 🙂
You are soooo lucky to have received a copy of this book, Tandy!
I was indeed Zirkie 🙂
My kids would LOVE these!
They are perfect for lunch boxes Pam 🙂
Wow! These apple jam bars look absolutely stunning, delicious and divine. Will sure give it a try soon! 🙂
Enjoy them Anu 🙂
Gorgeous recipe, Tandy and what a lovely book too! Thanks for sharing.
My pleasure Liz 🙂
I love these Apple and Jam bars! they look so good! Thanks for the recipe!
My pleasure Marcela 🙂
These look lovely and with all that citrus in the mixture, very refreshing. Good idea to blitz up the almonds, it wouldn’t have occurred to me. GG
I am going to experiment with other nuts as well 🙂
Tandy, I like bars like this. And I like the idea of serving them with custard. I have the same problem you have when testing other people’s recipes: have to hold myself back from making changes!
I find that the most challenging aspect of recipe testing 🙂
Apple and jam bars sound really good to me. Interesting that the dough was really sticky. I would have expected it to be more crumbly going in.
I thought the same Maureen which is why I will make my own version sometime soon 🙂
They look absolutely yummy and it comparison to the ones you can buy in a store – yours win! I’ll try to make them very soon :-).
These are way better than store bought 🙂
These apple and jam bars look wonderful Tandy and would be perfect for afternoon tea or I guess anytime of the day. I agree almond powder is so expensive but at least its good to know how to make your own when you need a small amount 🙂
I think it is much easier to make your own 🙂