Amy's Almond Cake (or almond bars as my family calls them) is a traditional christmas and special occasion dessert for my family. It is somewhat finicky. It never baked quite right when I lived at sea level. It only seems to work at 5000 feet. (I made this later in WI at 1000 ft and it worked fine at that elevation.) It is supposed to be like a dense brownie, and not very cake-like. At sea level it was more like dense cake.
If you make it in a 10x15 cookie sheet, do 1x the recipe for the right thickness. If you make it in 12x17in. sheet, do 1.25x the recipe. If you make it 1x in a 9x13 casserole dish, it will be too thick. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, either way.
Here is the original recipe (perfect in 10x15 inch pan)
8 oz (2 cubes) melted butter
4 eggs
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 tbsp almond extract
mix. put into greased cookie sheet. Garnish with sliced almonds.
Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes until golden.
Let cool and cut in triangles. (cut squares first, then run knife diagonally through corners)
Anecdote: One year at christmas my dad squashed a piece of this into the red tablecloth. Really hard. There was a big dark grease mark, to say the least.
