Billionaire’s Almond Tray Bake

I love Millionaire’s Shortbread; who doesn’t? This is my offering within the same “family” of bakes. It’s not an attempt to replace or upstage the classic bake, merely a lovely alternative.

I only began baking a few years ago and am now in my seventies, which means there are hundreds – no, thousands – of fantastic, exciting and tasty things that I haven’t yet baked. I bake nearly every day of the week, but rarely repeat anything. Likewise, I don’t have the time to re-bake my recipes endlessly to perfect them.

That’s why I’m posting this recipe with comments for changes and improvements; you may have better ideas. Along the way, I probably did something silly or just plain wrong. I’m hoping you’ll have a go and then get back to me via the contact page and together we can create something even more lovely.

Serves: 16 squares or 12 larger bars

Level: Easy

Time: 40 – 45 minutes plus cooling and setting time

Need: A 20cm (8”) square baking tin

Base layer ingredients:

225g/8oz biscuits (digestives or similar sweet biscuits)
100g/3.5oz flaked almonds
150g/5.5oz butter (This may have been too much)

Mid layer ingredients:

Tin of caramel (I have made caramel using condensed milk, but had this available in the cupboard. By all means make your own if you want.)
75g/2.5oz ground almonds
25ml/1fl oz amaretto liqueur (optional, but very nice)
1 tsp almond extract
25ml/1fl oz double cream (optional for extra indulgence)

Top layer ingredients:

150g/5.5oz white chocolate
75g/2.5oz milk or dark chocolate
16 whole almonds, with or without the skin (I had blanched almonds, but those with skins would have looked better, I think.)
1 – 2 tsp Sprinkles to scatter (I used mini white & milk chocolate balls)

Method

1. Oven on at 200C / 180C fan / 400F / Gas 6. Line the tin with baking parchment. (I don’t grease tins nowadays, I just use a little water in them and cut the parchment to fit with no gaps. It stays in place , the bake doesn’t stick and – best of all – there’s no greasy washing up.)

2. Whizz the biscuits in a food processor, add flaked almonds near the end. Don’t grind these too finely; the overall texture should be fine biscuit crumbs with slightly larger pieces of almond. (This bit seemed to work well.)

3. Melt the butter. Pour over the biscuit crumbs and stir well to fully combine. Use this to layer the tin, press down well. (A plastic dough scraper is ideal for this.)

4. Place in heated oven for 15 minutes. This is only to firm it up and brown it a little. In fact, if you’re short of time (or patience, like me) you could skip this bit and not put it in the oven.

5. Meanwhile though, open a tin of caramel and pour into a bowl. Stir in the ground almonds, amaretto and almond extract, plus the cream if using. Pour this yummy mixture over the biscuit base then tip the tin back and forth so it all sits level. (I’ve been told by friends on Facebook that adding alcohol isn’t a good idea as it inhibits setting. The main problem with this bake was that the caramel was too soft. I don’t think it was an alcohol issue, more that I failed to heat the caramel. Instead I poured it on cold and that was that. I now think I should have boiled it to thicken it then poured it on.)

6. For the top layer, melt both chocolates. First pour on the melted white chocolate and tip pan back and forth again. Swirl on the darker chocolate then scatter with almonds or place 16 almonds so that every square will have one when you cut it up. (I used a lot more white chocolate than dark, but the overall top was still dark. Maybe I should have put the dark chocolate on first then swirled the white on top. Not really a big problem, but worth considering.)

I should also have made the point that when the tray bake has cooled it needs to go in the fridge for a while.

I hope you give this experimental bake a try. If not, here are a few of my other (less experimental) tray bakes that you might like:

Strawberry Millionaire’s Shortbread