Soft crumbly almond orange bars is a flourless torte made with all the goodness of crushed almonds.  

The recipe

I got the idea for this almond bar when I was making a Spanish almond cake called Tarta de Santiago—Galicia. The Spanish almond cake was wonderfully fluffy and light but it took 6 eggs to make it that way and I thought let me try and make a version with just 2 eggs and alter the recipe a bit.  Here I was trying to figure out if anyone would like this almond bar like cake when a funny thing happened;  the family started trying it and absolutely loved it!

What they liked is the nutty texture and the almond and orange flavors, but they also liked that the bars didn’t taste eggy.   The bar is a little more dense and not as fluffy like a traditional cake but its still moist and delicious nonetheless.

You can bake the almond torte it in a square pan for bars or a round cake pan for an almond torte.  Give it a try!

Almond Orange Bar
with inspiration from Tarta de Santiago—Galicia from Spain. Almond cake on Epicurious.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups almond meal
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 large eggs
• 4 tbsp butter softened
• 1 cup sugar
• Grated zest of 1 orange
• Grated zest of 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 4 drops almond extract
• 1 tsp vanilla
• Powdered sugar for dusting

Directions:

• Line the bottom of a 10, 11 or 12 inch round, square or rectangular cake pan with parchment paper. Grease the parchment paper and the sides with butter and dust it with sugar. Preheat oven to 350°F.
• With an electric mixer, beat the eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla, almond extract, and orange juice together until smooth. Next beat in the zests.
• In another bowl mix together almond meal, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add this to the liquid mixture.
• Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes.  If the top starts to brown too much at the 15 minute mark, place a parchment paper over the cake and continue baking until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool for 30 minutes before taking out of pan.
• Cut into pieces and dust with powdered sugar before serving.