Ginger Cardamom Bars

Life Lesson – Do someone a favor and you might get a great new recipe in return.

It’s true!

During this recent opera season, my friend Mimi asked to borrow some cardamom to make a dessert for a party. The season was winding down and she rightly didn’t want to buy an entire jar of a spice when she only needed a small bit.

In return for my cardamom delivery, she brought me one of the most delicious, spicy and buttery treats I’ve had in a long time – Ginger Cardamom Bars.

I quickly looked up the recipe on epicurious and made a batch for myself. They’re extremely easy and quick to put together – especially if you have a food processor.

Here’s what you need:

Flour, Sugar, Unslated Butter, Egg, Candied Ginger, Ground Cardamom, Cinnamon, Salt, and Non-Stick Cooking Spray.

Click here for a Ginger Cardamom Bar Shopping List

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

If you don’t have a food processor, you can make these using a hand held pastry blender. However, a food processor makes these bars a snap and very quick to make.

Put 2 cups of flour and 1 cup of sugar in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the regular metal blade. Add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon…

and 1 1/2 teaspoons of ground cardamom.

Cardamom is sort of an unusual spice. It’s related to Ginger but comes from a seed pod that is then ground into a powder. I’ll admit, as spices go cardamom can be pretty expensive – $8-10 if you buy a big jar in the regular spice section of the grocery store. However, if you have a Whole Foods, Natural Food Store/Co-Op, or even Asian Grocery, you can probably find cardamom available in bulk. That way you can buy a much smaller quantity, keep it fresher since you won’t have a whole bottle hanging around for the next several years, and spend less money.

And once you have cardamom, you should just go right ahead and make this Awesome Granola!

Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt to the other dry ingredients.

Put the lid on and give the food processor a few pulses to combine all of the dry ingredients.

Cut 2 sticks (1 cup) of COLD butter into cubes and add it to the processor.

Pulse the processor 8-10 times until the butter has been broken up into a coarse meal.

Crack 1 egg and use a fork to beat it until the yolk and white are completely incorporated.

Add 2 Tablespoons of the beaten egg to the food processor. Keep the rest of the egg that is leftover — we’ll use it for the top of the dough.

Pulse 6-8 more times until the mixture feels like moist sand. Don’t over work this dough, it should be very crumbly.

Use a sharp knife to chop a 4 ounce package (about 3/4 cup) of candied ginger into small pieces.

Add the ginger to the dough mixture and pulse it just 3-4 times to incorporate all the ingredients.

Spray a 9×9 inch baking pan thoroughly with non-stick cooking spray. Dump the crumbly dough into the pan and use your fingers to press it into an even layer in the bottom of the pan.

Brush the remaining part of the beaten egg over the top of the pastry.

With a sharp knife, lightly score the top of the dough with diagonal lines that are about 1 inch apart to form a checkerboard pattern.

Bake the bars at 350 degrees for 40 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Let the bars cool completely in the pan and then cut them into small squares.

These are quite buttery and rich so you can cut them a little smaller than you normally would for other bars or brownies.

These are moist, buttery, tangy, buttery, gingery, buttery, and extremely addictive!

Here’s the recipe:  from Bon Appetit/Epicurious

Ginger Cardamom Bars