Blackberry + Plum + Ginger + Almond = Yay

First off,  dear reader, I am sorry to have neglected you for the last week and a half. There were SCHOOL VISITS and INTERVIEW MARATHONS that had to happen, and as much as I would prefer otherwise, those kind of do take precedence. Imagine what my future employment prospects would look like if I responded to an overnight interview request with "Yeah, I have these jam bars to make, so Monday's not really going to work for me . . . "

*brief pause where I urge the collected readership of this blog, all 14 of you lovelies, to cross your fingers and toes and eyes and anything else crossable. TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE THIS HAPPEN, PEOPLE.*

HOWEVER. I am back at the farm, back in my day-to-day attire of oversized leggings and ancient sweater vests (for real, I didn't even REMEMBER I owned the one I'm currently sporting but it's awesome so there), and back to KITCHEN ADVENTURES. 

To whit:

Let's also state for the record that I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what day it is anymore, because on Wednesday morning I pulled out mixing bowls and measuring cups and started getting ingredients together for Easter Cake, and Mum, ever pleasant and accommodating, said, "Oh, are you doing a trial bake of that?" and I was all "No, what are you talking about don't be ridiculous it's EASTER ON SUNDAY, DUH" and she was all "Um, DUH YOURSELF, look at the calendar" and then I was all "Ohhhhh" and put the marzipan and powdered sugar back in the cupboard. 

I've been on a Donna Hay magazine kick recently. Sometimes it's just fun / depressing to flip through and pretend that I am a glamourous Australian 30-something spending a posh glamping weekend with my equally glamourous friends, and we're nostalgically indulging in salted caramel popcorn and homemade chocolate swirl marshmallows and later on we're all going to go ice skating before returning my floor-to-ceiling-windowed-high-rise-with-24-hour-amenities-and-walk-in-closets-and-state-of-the-art-applianced apartment and roasting an entire grass-fed pig with root vegetables and herbs whilst lounging in front of my fireplace and reveling in how beautiful and successful and carefree we all are. 

And sometimes during these little imaginations I think "maybe if I make the Blackberry Ginger Bar recipe that's featured in this spread I'll get a job and move to Australia and get prettier and more fashionable and my life will become like that. 

And then I go WORTH A TRY, BEETLE. WORTH A TRY. 

It's been 2 days. 

Nothing yet. 

BLACKBERRY PLUM GINGER BARS

Note the addition of "Plum" to the title of this recipe. I needed to make up some jam volume, and I'd cleaned out the Blackberry and was gazing in blind culinary panic at the jam section of the cupboard, and lo and behold a jar of Damson Plum came to my rescue, and . . . long story short . . . these became Blackberry PLUM bars.

The "ginger" of the name refers to the dough itself rather than the filling, which is vaguely different and fun. This is SERIOUS dough, you guys. SERIOUSLY AWESOME. More than just flour and butter and ginger, it's got cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, and almonds. 

INGREDIENTS

• 2 sticks plus 2 tbs butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 cups almond meal
• 1 tbs ground ginger
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• Blackberry Jam
• confectioner's sugar (for optional dusting purposes. I straight up FORGOT to to this until right now and it's too late because the librarians have already eaten them all so sorry, guys)

Beat the butter, brown sugar, and sugar together. Add the eggs one at a time, beat everything together until it's pale and fluffy. Add the flour, baking powder, almond meal, ginger, and mixed spice and beat again. 

Divide the dough in half, wrap each piece in clingfilm, and refrigerate for at least half an hour. 

When it's ready, roll out one of the halves so it fits the bottom of a 9 x 12 inch or similar baking tin. (Mine is 9 x 13 for example.) Spread the jam over the base as evenly as you can. Roll out the remaining dough, slightly larger this time, and lay over the jam, squishing it at the edges. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes until the top is browning and the jam is bubbling. When it's cool, slice it up, and if you remember to dust it with confectioner's sugar so much the better but I don't think it's a dealbreaker. 

BEETLE NOTES

Obviously, I could never just make the recipe. Psh. That would be sensible and practical, and why would I bother being either of those things, huh? BORING. 

The big switch out happened because the recipe calls for 3 cups of almond meal. 

Ahem. 

1. THAT'S A LOT OF ALMOND MEAL

2. I only had HAZELNUT meal (I mean, what kind of person does that make me?)

3. I toyed with the idea of using hazelnut, but somehow with the ginger and spice and blackberry (this was before the plum) I didn't feel it would be a perfect combination. I don't know, hazelnut has a whole different personality than almond, and a straight substitution was making me all nervous and twitchy. 

In the end, I used straight flour for the whole thing (3 extra cups) plus 2 teaspoons of almond extract plus a few tablespoons of milk for the added moistness that nut meals have. And it didn't ruin them. It gave them an almond-y-ness that was delightfully aromatic and that made me glad I didn't opt for hazelnuts or get rid of the "nut" idea completely. 

The "mixed spice" phenomenon is something you only encounter with British or Australian recipes. It's technically I think just a mix of "the baking spices" so I did the incredibly accurate and easily repeatable method of "pull out cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and cardamom and give each on a hearty couple of shakes over the mixing bowl." Again, didn't ruin them.

As previously discussed, I threw half a jar of Damson Plum Jam in there because the Blackberry on its own was looking so woeful and anemic and sad and my theory is that if you're going to bother making Jam Bars, MAKE THEM JAMMY. And plums and blackberries are quite friendly with each other, especially when almonds and spice are involved.

I love how in the recipe Donna is all "roll out the dough to 3mm thick and place in a baking tray then roll out another rectangle and place over the jam filling" AS IF IT WERE AS EASY AS THAT. I am here to tell you, dear reader. IT IS NOT  AS EASY AS THAT. It might have been because of my tweaks, it might have been because I almost never chill it for the required time because I'm too impatient and always want to get the show on the road already, it might have been because, unlike Donna Hay and everyone in her magazine, I am not perfect and my dough ALWAYS sticks to the rolling pin, tears, squishes, and generally behaves like a recalcitrant sticky mess.

For the base layer, I rolled it out to something generally resembling a large rectangle, then used my fingers and my palms to shove it into the required shape and tried to make it even all over. For the top . . . well . . . funny you should mention that . . . hilarious, actually. You'll notice in the photos that the top of this is . . . how shall I put it . . . patchworked? That is because I rolled out a BEAUTIFUL rectangle of lightly-spiced-almond-scented dough, picked it up at the edges, and watched it immediately rip and fall and crumple and generally commit dough suicide on my pastry mat. This happened the second time I did it. And the third.

I gave up after that and rolled out three small rectangles and laid them end to end. Then patched the holes where the jam was showing through. It wasn't the most beautiful thing in the world. In fact I think my glamourous 30-something Australian counterparts would have taken one look at them and gone to the apartment next door where they know how to do things RIGHT. But. I figured out that if you slice the bars along the line of the secret dough overlap, it doesn't show. SO THERE. TAKE THAT. ARMCHAIR KARATE CHOP OF TRIUMPH.

Once they were cooled, ugly or not they sliced up really well with only minimal crumbling at the bottom. And some of them actually were quite pretty and not deformed in appearance. See below.

This is the part of the post where I am thankful to have a mother who is happy eating the visual rejects.

She's cool like that.

Next up, Lemon Shortbread from last week. As soon as I go put on another sweater vest.