Almond Bars are tender, lightly sweetened shortbread-like bars that are so good, you'll find yourself doubling the recipe every single time you make them.
Prep Time20 minutesmins
Cook Time20 minutesmins
Total Time40 minutesmins
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Servings: 18bars
Calories: 181kcal
Ingredients
Almond Bar Ingredients
1cupsugar
1/2cupbutter, room temperature
1egg, room temperature
1/2teaspoonalmond extract
1 3/4cupsall purpose flour *
2teaspoonbaking powder
1/4teaspoonkosher salt
1tbspmilk
1/2cupsliced almonds
Icing Ingredients
1cuppowdered sugar
1/4tspalmond extract
1-2tbspmilk
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. Cream together the butter and the sugar. Add the egg and the almond extract and then mix until light and fluffy. Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Mix until combined.
Press the dough into the bottom of a well-greased 9x13 pan. Press with your fingers or a pastry roller to smooth the top of the dough. Using a pastry brush, brush a tiny bit of milk across the top of the dough. Sprinkle with sliced almonds and very lightly press them into the top of the dough.
Bake for 18-20 min, or until just barely beginning to brown around the edges. Do not let the bars brown at all. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then cut into bars. If they are too soft to cut, let them cool for a few more minutes. Carefully transfer the bars to a wire rack to cool completely before icing.
To make the icing: Add just a tiny bit of milk at a time to the powdered sugar. If the consistency is too thick, it won't drizzle nicely over the bars. If it is too thin, the icing will just melt into the bars. If you are unsure, test a bit of it on the edge of one bar before drizzling the icing over the entire batch.
Notes
For a quadrupled recipe: The batch will fit, just barely into the bowl of my kitchenaid mixer. The bars will fill two half size baking sheets. (approximately 18"x13") I cut them into 36 bars each, for a total of 6 dozen bars. Also, I double (instead of quadrupling) the ingredients for the icing and I usually have icing remaining.