Lemon Curd Almond Slices | Tangy sweetness

Encouraging frugality is rewarding in my kitchen. I’ve never been one to waste food, let alone toss it away. I always scour recipes to prevent such a thing from happening in my kitchen. This particular baking session happened because of that opened jar of Lemon Curd which has been residing in the refrigerator for less than a year.

Every time I spotted it, Id look at the expiration date and make a note to start looking up recipes. This was a premium Sicilian lemon variety and thinking about its sour sweet tangy flavour when I used it in mini pastry shells topped with fresh raspberries is making me salivate right now. Since time is precious now that I am raising a baby, I needed a much simpler fix.

With my cousin getting married last August, we were hosting the compulsory family orientation dinner and I knew this would be the right time to polish off that jar. While looking for recipes, the ones that I liked were all spin-offs of this recipe by Ben O’Donoghue. These three layered slices consist of the buttery almost shortbread like crust, the lemon curd spread all over and topped with almond meal streusel. The bride was well known for her love of white chocolate which was why I decided to fancy these slices up a wee bit.

You can tell I had a gala time creating the white chocolate lattice. From the photographs you can tell that it does have a slight tendency to break off from the slice because of the streusel topping but that isn’t really a problem. I noticed it when I was cutting my slices and a bit it would break off from the corners. White chocolate paired with lemon curd provides that hint of sweetness without taking away from the tanginess. I had more almond meal than required for my streusel, so I mixed the rest right in with my crust for a nutty toasted crunch. These slices would be that pick-me-up in the afternoons I’d reach out for.

This happens to be my first iPhone only post. My husband is HUGE on tech and I cannot thank Apple enough for coinciding their iPhone launches with our anniversary month. It makes shopping for him easy peasy and though he knows what he is getting, he is super thrilled every single time. This year he surprised me by replacing my two generation old phone with the iPhone 6 and I have absolutely loved working with the camera on it. All the photos in the post have been shot, edited and watermarked using the iPhone only. Pretty neat right?

Ok, back to food.You can totally skip the white chocolate lattice if it isn’t something you’d want to have. Or you can top off your slices with icing sugar or use hazelnut meal or pistachio dust. Next time around, I think I’ll spread an ever so thin layer of raspberry jam on top of the lemon curd before streuseling it up.

Here’s the recipe.

Lemon Curd Almond Slice

Recipe slightly adapted from Ben O’Donoghue

INGREDIENTS 

• 1 ⅔ cups plain flour
• ½ cup Icing sugar, plus extra to dust
• 180g chilled unsalted butter, chopped
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tbs cold milk
• 500g lemon curd
• ½ cup almond meal
• 100 g white chocolate

Crumble

• ½ cup almond meal
• 2 tbs caster sugar
• 50g chilled unsalted butter, chopped
• 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
• ⅓ cup plain flour

METHOD

• Sift the flour, almond meal and icing sugar into a food processor and whiz to combine.
• Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles fine crumbs.
• Add yolk and milk, then pulse until mixture comes together in a ball.
• Turn out and knead briefly, then shape into a disc.
• Cover and chill for 30 minutes.
• For the crumble, place flour, almond meal, sugar and butter in a bowl. Then rub together with your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
• Stir through yolk and chill until required.
• Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 28cm x 18cm baking pan with parchment paper, allowing plenty to overhang the sides.
• Coarsely grate the pastry into the pan, then press evenly into the base to cover.
• Prick all over with a fork, then chill for another 15 minutes.
• Bake the pastry for 30-35 minutes until golden and dry. Cool to room temperature.
• Spread lemon curd over the cooled pastry, then scatter over crumble mixture.
• Bake for another 25-30 minutes until golden.
• Cool completely in the pan.
• Melt white chocolate in a microwave or using a double boiler until completely melted.
• Wait for it to cool for a minute and then pour it into an icing bag.
• Snip of the tip of the bag making sure not to make a large hole.
• Quickly form a lattice on top of the slices and allow to cool.
• Place it in the refrigerator for half an hour.
• Slice the bars into desired shapes.

Have a good food day.