Nut tarts, the sequel

I previously shared a recipe for one of our family's favorite sweet treats, which we call nut tarts.

In the past, I've always made them as large wedges cut out of a 12" pie. But I wanted to experiment with making smaller pieces. You can't just cut the wedges thinner, because they'd get too fragile near the point. And all the points would break off. And then someone would have to eat those.

So this is a brief instruction in assembling and slicing them a different way. The original recipe is here, and up to the point where you begin rolling out the crust, nothing changes.

Instead of rolling the crust into a 12" circle, I aimed for more of a rectangle shape, which was roughly 12" in the longer direction. Then I marked the bottom crust lightly with a spatula to show where I was going to trim it. Then I spread the nuts to about 3/4 to 1" away from that mark, in two rows, leaving about 2" between the rows.

Then I lightly moistened the perimeter and center, and laid the second crust over this and pressed it gently down all over. Is it just me, or does this look sort of creepy?

Then I trimmed the excess crust away, leaving a rectangle-y  shape. I rolled out the excess dough for a bonus treat, but that's completely optional. I sprinkled the nut tarts lightly and the extra dough generously with cinnamon sugar. Oh, and the photo doesn't show this, but I pricked the top crust down the middle with a fork.

Then into the oven to bake for 18 - 20 minutes, or until golden-brown and delicious!

I cut one piece into wedges and the other into bars. The holes I made with the fork ended up making the top crusts crack apart there and some of the pieces break in two, so I would do that differently next time.

I may or may not have eaten the broken piece.

I think next time, I'll do wedges, but make the fork pokes closer to the wide end, like this:

Aren't you glad you can learn from my failures instead of making your own?

The way I cut these, I didn't end up with too many more pieces than in the original method, but they are sturdier. And cuter! And every bit as tasty!

Almond poppyseed shortbread

This recipe has been in my favorites file for decades. Back when I made bunches of Christmas cookies every year, this was in the mix year after year, and it was a big hit at our recent birthday party. It makes a delicate, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread with a subtle almond flavor.

Don't be alarmed if you sneak a taste of the dough and it seems a little bland. The shortbread itself is not very sweet, but that is purposely so, to balance out the sweetness of the glaze. If you want to try making these without the glaze, you'll probably want to double the sugar, at least.

Recipe: Almond Poppyseed Shortbread

1/2 c. + 2 T. real butter
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
3 T. sugar
1 T. poppy seeds
almond glaze (see  below)

Take 1/2 c. of butter and soften it slightly; just enough to make it mashable. Mash it with a fork, then sprinkle the almond extract over and mash some more to work the extract through the butter. Set aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar and poppyseeds. With pastry blender, cut in the almond-butter until mixture resembles large crumbs.

Try forming the dough into a ball; if it will not all stick together, cut in another tablespoon of soften butter. Test it again, and keep adding butter a little at a time until all the dough sticks together when pressed into a ball. 

Once you have it worked into one large ball, place the dough on a cookie sheet. Because this dough is so buttery, you don't need to grease the pan or use parchment.

Begin patting the dough out and flatten it. It may crumble apart in places. Just pat them back together.

After it's patted out, use a rolling pin to smooth the surface more.

As the edges crumble apart, periodically gather and pat them back into the circle.

Use the rolling pin to make the top smooth, and your hands to pat things back together, alternating between the two as needed. Work the dough gently until it's a circle approximately 8" in diameter, and 1/2" thick.

For cutting the pieces, you can just eyeball it, or, if you want very uniform pieces, use a ruler to measure and a toothpick to mark spacing in the dough.

Then use the ruler as a straightedge guide, and a pizza cutter to make the slices. I cut this batch into 16 squares, but you could also cut them into bars or diamonds. You do not need to separate the squares before baking.

Bake in 325 F oven 25 to 35 minutes, until edges just start to brown.

Remove from oven and slice through again with the pizza cutter, in the same place as your first cuts.

An offset spatula works great for moving these delicate little square cookies.

Let cookies cool completely. Drizzle with almond glaze. (Recipe below.) To avoid the globby drizzles seen on the left here, don't start your drizzle on top of a cookie. Start the drizzle just a bit off to the side, then when it becomes a thinner, uniform stream, move over the cookie and wave the spoon gently but quickly back and forth as you move along over the cookies.

Ain't they purty?!

Makes 16 cookies (plus a few scraps!) if cut into 1.5" squares.

Almond Glaze
1.5 T. milk
1/4 t. almond extract
1 c. sifted powdered sugar

Combine  milk and almond extract. Add to powdered sugar and mix thorough. Add a little more milk if necessary to make of glazing consistency.

This makes enough glaze to cover two batches of dough.

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