These were fun: Almond Fingers

Except, I made squares, not fingers.  I got it in my head that fingers would be far too ladylike and dainty and small when I was cutting them (I know, dainty and small are pretty much the same thing), and I wasn't having any of that, so I cut them into big ol' squares.  It wasn't until afterwards that I remembered about big ol' plumber sausage fingers.  Sausage finger almond fingers would be perfectly acceptable, so next time for that.  I think, having a meringue topping, fingers might be a bit less messy-crumbly than squares to eat, but really, having crumbs to hunt down on a plate isn't exactly a tragedy.  It's just a bit sad if you have guests that would judge you for licking the plate.  My advice?  Don't invite those sorts of people over.

I overbaked these horribly, but we still managed to eat them all, so even horribly overbaking didn't make them horrible as it turns out.  Yay!  The recipe said to bake 20 to 25 minutes, but actually, they were ready in 10.  I was completely disbelieving that my oven and the recipe could be so far out, so I spent 10 minutes dancing around the oven humming and haaring and second guessing myself (while they overbaked, dammit all), until I smelled that horrible smell of slice that's been just that little bit too long in the oven and bad words were said.  Still, as I said, we still ate them.  We're committed like that.

They were fun, and a different thing to make.  You roll out the short base, and pour/spread the meringue over top, sprinkle with almonds, then cut them up and put them onto the baking sheet pre-baking.  Getting them between the sheet I rolled them out on and the sheet I was going to bake them on took a bit of a delicate touch, but I managed to do the entire batch without disaster (until the aforementioned overbaking.  Sigh!).

I'm definitely making these again.  They were either from Ladies, A Plate by Alexa Johnston, or A Second Helping by the same author.  If I were less lazy, I'd walk across the room to the bookshelf to confirm which.  I think it was Ladies, A Plate.

Anyway.  Soooo .... yuuuum!  And magic with a cup of coffee.  Boom.