Almond pear shortbread bars. Almond Shortbread Bars ~ an easy shortbread dessert recipe infused with a homemade almond paste, and topped with a to-die-for sweet almond glaze! These pear pie crumble bars are made up of three components. It's the same basic crust I use for most of my pie bars, including apple butter pie bars and my pumpkin pie bars. It's a shortbread crust, made with butter, flour, and granulated sugar. For this recipe, I added almonds.

Almonds and pears go together like PB&J. Beat at medium speed until creamy. Make the crust: Mix the melted butter, sugar, vanilla extract, and salt together in a medium bowl. You can have Almond pear shortbread bars using 19 ingredients and 8 steps. Here is how you achieve that.

Ingredients of Almond pear shortbread bars

It's of Crust.
Prepare 1/2 cup of unsalted butter, softened.
It's 1 1/4 cup of flour.
It's 1/4 cup of sugar.
You need 1/2 cup of chopped almonds.
It's 1/4 teaspoon of salt.
Prepare of Filling.
It's 4 1/2 cups of diced pears.
It's 2 tablespoons of sugar.
You need 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon.
You need 3 teaspoons of cornstarch.
You need of Crumble topping.
Prepare 1/2 cup of unsalted butter, softenend.
Prepare 1 cup of flour.
You need 1/4 cup of granulated sugar.
Prepare 1/4 cup of brown sugar.
It's 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.
You need 1/4 teaspoon of salt.
You need 1/2 cup of chopped almonds.

Add the flour and stir to completely combine. An easy shortbread recipe, some good quality jam and flaked almonds are all you need. An easy shortbread base, a layer of sweet and tangy raspberry jam in the middle, all topped off with a layer of crisp yet chewy, flaked almonds. These almond shortbread bars are rich and buttery enough to satisfy my craving for the decadence of a chocolate dessert, while the creamy glaze adds the perfect amount of sweetness.

Almond pear shortbread bars instructions

Line a 9×9” pan with foil and grease with butter. Cooking sprays are the devil..in my opinion. Preheat oven to 350°F.
Prepare the crust by slowly mixing all the crust ingredients in a large bowl using a pastry cutter or fork. The mixture will be crumbly. Press the crust in the prepared pan and bake for 15 minutes..
If pears are ripe and soft - Core and diced. If pears are tougher you will need to par cook them by doing the following: place the diced pears in a medium saucepan. Fill the pan with water so that half the pears are covered. Cook over medium heat, bringing to a boil then simmering for about 5 minutes until the pears just start to turn semi-translucent. Drain very well..
Stir together pears, sugars, cinnamon and cornstarch.
Mix the topping ingredients together just as you did for the crust. It will be crumbly..
Remove the hot crust from the oven. Sprinkle the pears carefully on top (make sure they are well drained first – do not add any of the extra liquid!), then sprinkle with the topping. Bake for an additional 35-45 minutes until the crumble topping starts to brown..
Cool in pan completely before using foil to lift out..
Slice and serve..

And let's not forget about the almond slivers on top! They make for the perfect amount of crunch when taking a bite. Evenly frost the bars, smoothing frosting lightly with a spatula as necessary. These gluten-free shortbread bars, made with all almond flour and flavored with clementine zest, sandwich a sweet-bitter poppy seed jam and are crowned in wintery blue, silver, and white pearly. To make the crust, add the flour, sugar and salt to the bowl of a food processor and pulse once to combine.