My Hobbie Lobbie

For this months edition of The Secret Recipe Club, hosted by the lovely Amanda of Amanda's Cookin, I was assigned Jeanie's blog The Tasty Cheapskate, "Hi Jeanie"!!!. Over the last month, I've had so much fun going through this lovely blog and I've found some very interesting recipes that I can see myself making very soon. One  recipe that caught my attention and kept coming to mind every now and then, almost menacingly, in a nice way though, were Oma van der Wouden's Dutch Almond Bars. I've never seen or had Dutch Almond Bars before, but I'm quite fond of almonds and these bars looked so amazing, I had to try them.


This recipe calls for almond paste and in this part of the world we don't get this stuff off the shelf in stores. I did a little digging online and most sources called for additional sugar, eggs, extracts and so on. I decided to do things a little differently. Since the recipe for these bars seemed to have sufficient sweetness, I simply added some homemade almond paste (details below). The batter came together beautifully and while these bars were baking, I was going nuts with the anticipation (read 'doing a crazy dance all around the kitchen and eagerly peeking through the oven door almost every minute'). The wait and the anticipation was so worth it. These bars are a real treat. They are perfect with a cup of tea or coffee. They are not too sweet but have this lovely nutty richness that the butter and the almonds have to offer. They are so wonderfully moreish. Be warned, you won't be able to stop at one. So thank you Jeanie for sharing this lovely treat. This recipe is a definite keeper.