Lemon Squares

This is a really quick and easy food processor recipe, but it does mean that I have naff all in the way of "in progress" photos:)



Ingredients

Preheat oven to 180C (350F)

Base

2 cups plain flour
1 cup cold butter, in smallish pieces
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/2 cup coconut - flaked or desiccated

Lemon Layer

1/4 cup plain flour
2 cups white caster sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon baking powder

Greased and lined 13 x 9 x 2 baking pan

Place all the ingredients for the base into the food processor and process until it looks like wet sand. Press the crumb mixture into the base of the pan and bake for 15-20 minutes until the edges are golden brown.

While the base is baking in the oven, put all ingredients for the lemon layer into the food processor and blend for two or three minutes until well combined and to let the sugar begin to dissolve into the eggs and lemon.

Pour the lemon mixture over the base while it's still hot and bake again for 20-25 minutes until the surface of the lemon mixture is crisp and golden. It's easier to do the pouring if you just leave the baking pan in the oven and slide the shelf it's sitting on out of the oven slightly to make it easier to get at, rather than try to carry it back to the oven full of liquid.

Once baked remove the baking pan from the oven and place on a wire rack, then leave the squares in the pan until complete cool and cut into squares ready to serve.



The lemony layer is very like a firm set lemon curd with a very light and crispy topping.

Enjoy

Golden Scottish Shortbread

I love homemade shortbread and I have a recipe which I have used for years, however when I went to make my usual recipe this week I realised at the last minute that I was short on icing sugar.

So I tinkered.

And it was better.

I tinkered a little more.

And it was great.

I give you the new improved recipe.



125g plain white flour
30g rice or corn flour
50g caster (fine) sugar
100g regular salted butter or 100g unsalted butter and a pinch of salt.
Preheat oven to 160C (300F)

Place all ingredients in a bowl and either rub the fat into the flour and sugar or, if like me you have a life, simply grab your little hand held electric beater and let that do the work for you.

It doesn't come together as a dough but you should end up with something resembling breadcrumbs or wet sand.



Once you get to this stage, tip the contents of the bowl into a 8 inch loose bottom cake pan, give it a quick shake to level it slightly and then press the crumbs into the bottom of the cake pan. Don't press too hard, you don't want to lose any of the lovely lightness, but be firm enough that it will hold together. Best of all, you don't need to bother preparing the pan in any way. No lining, no greasing, nothing at all.

Once you have it pressed into the pan, bake for 15 to 20 minutes. It took exactly 20 minutes in my oven, but bear in mind that my oven is getting on in years. If your oven is newer check it from from about 13 to 15 minutes.

Once the shortbread is baked, remove it from the oven and place it, still in the pan, on a cooling rack for about 5 or 10 minutes.

You'll notice that there really isn't that much colour change. It's a very pale golden colour all over with slightly more colour just at the very edge.

After about 10 minutes, the shortbread will have had a chance to firm up ever so slightly. At this stage, sprinkle the shortbread with a teaspoon or so of caster sugar. I tend to throw it on in a haphazard fashion and then shake the pan from side to side to cover the top of the shortbread with a thin coat of sugar. Then cut the shortbread into either 8 or 16 wedges whichever you prefer. I tend to cut mine in 8. I find if I cut into 16 I still eat two pieces, although those long slender wedges do look a bit more impressive.




Once cut, leave the shortbread to cool completely in the pan before turning out, drooling all over the camera because you had to photograph it and then enjoy a dense crumbly wedge with coffee, ice cream, dipped into fool or mousse or just naked as it is.

Fifteens - No bake recipe

Fifteens are delicious but beware they are sweet and a bit rich.

It is one of the simplest tray bakes to prepare.

Combine;

Fifteen digestive biscuits, crushed,
Fifteen large marshmallows, quartered,
Fifteen glace cherries, halved or chopped,
One small can of condensed milk (160ml)

Mix these ingredients together in a large bow until you have a soft dough like consistency.

75 g flaked or desiccated coconut

Spread out a layer of coconut on a sheet of aluminium foil or greaseproof paper and using your hands form the dough into a long sausage shape, short and fat for big portions or long and thin for bite sized pieces. Roll the dough back and forth until reasonably well coated in coconut and then use the foil or greaseproof to wrap the sausage.

Chill for at least an hour or overnight and then slice into pieces about an inch thick.

Enjoy.