Iced Almond Slices

Remove ready rolled shortcrust pastry 30 mins before you use it. Turn oven on and preheat to gas mark 6/200°C.

After 30 minutes, roll out pastry onto a floured surface in order to cover a baking tray 34x24 cm. Place pastry onto the tray and prick pastry surface all over with a fork.

Cover surface of pastry with crumpled greaseproof paper. Place baking beans on top of paper and place into the middle of the oven. Bake for 20 minutes and then remove baking parchment and baking beans. Place back in the oven and bake for 5 minutes more. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Reduce oven temperature to gas mark 4/180°C.

Once cooled, cover the pastry with the raspberry jam. Mix well in a large bowl: 200g sifted icing sugar 200g caster sugar 350g ground almonds Mix together 2 eggs, 2 egg whites and 2 tsp of almond favouring. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the egg mixture and mix well. Spread combined mixture evenly all over the raspberry jam to the edges of the pastry. Scatter the flaked almonds evenly across the top of the almond paste mixture. Place on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 40-45 minutes until the surface is dark golden in colour. Remove and allow to cool.

Sift 450g of icing sugar into a large bowl. Add 4-5 tbsp of water plus 2 tsp of almond favouring. Mix well until smooth. Make sure it isn't runny nor should it be stiff. Once the correct texture is reached spread across the top of the dark golden crust, reserving 2-3 spoonfuls. Add red colouring to the reserved spoonfuls and place in a piping bag with a narrow pointed icing nozzle. Pipe approximately 15 red icing lines across the surface of the white icing about 2 cm apart. Draw the point of a cocktail stick through the red icing lines to create a feathering effect. Set aside for about 24 hours to set and harden.