Lemon Squares ☀

I've been FORCED to bake this week.  How terrible!  ...  With all the craziness happening right now and work being super busy there has been little time for anything, never mind my precious baking!  And also, strangely enough, there haven't been too many events, or reasons to bake or make things for (at least not ones that I can disclose right now!) so I found myself come to the end of the weekend with nothing to bake about. 

HMPHH.  So when Tuesday rolled around, and a glorious spare hour came to me between work and work I jumped on the chance to bake something delicious!  No time to go to the shop, so I was lucky enough to flick through a recipe book of 'Cakes and Slices' and come across Lemon Squares that didn't need more lemons than I had, and the 1 1/2 lemons sitting in my fridge would work perfectly.  Phew!  So I got right to it.

 

I'm so glad I did it as well... Since I started this blog in January 2013 I have really made it my aim to blog EVERY week about something, no matter how awesome or how small the project was.  There have been busy times that I thought I had nothing to blog about, but nothing has compared to how things are right now.  So whilst no one was physically forcing me to bake and to blog this week, my own mind definitely was - and I'm glad I did, because not only were the lemon squares perfectly lemony and delicious, but also it means I'm here - writing a post even if I don't really have time for it!
Hopefully I'll have enough to blog about the next couple of months too... we'll see, week after week what I can come up with.  And let's face it, baking is a go-to option even if no sewing or crafting is happening!

Well, after all that rambling about being busy, let's actually get to the lemon squares - it was the point of this after all!

 

Ingredients:

125g unsalted butter
75g sugar
155g plain, all-purpose flour

Topping:

4 eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
250g sugar
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
30g plain, all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

 

Method:

1.  Preheat the oven to 350°F/ 180°C.  Lightly grease a 9 x 9 inch tin and line the base with baking paper. (Yes, these first few photos show a rectangular tin as that is what the original recipe stated, however I wanted a slightly thicker bottom crust, so I made the decision and switched to a square tin instead!).

 

2.  Cream the butter and sugar in the mixer until light and fluffy.   

 

3.  Fold in the flour with a metal spoon. 

 

4.  Press into the tin and bake for 20 - 24 minutes, or until golden and firm.

 

Leave to cool.

 

 



5.  For the topping - beat the eggs and sugar using the mixer (or electric beaters) for 2 minutes, or until light and fluffy. 

 

6.  Stir in the lemon juice and lemon zest.

 

 

 

7.  Sift together the flour and baking powder, and gradually whisk into the egg mixture.  

 

 

8.  Pour onto the base (when cool) and bake for 25-28 minutes, or until just firm.

 

 

9.  Leave to cool in the tin.  Cut into squares and if desired, dust with icing sugar before serving.

 

After baking, I was desparately hoping the squares cooled in time to take some to my choir rehearsal... and luckily, just in time they were!  We got to enjoy them mid-rehearsal... I may have eaten a few too many, especially as I had one more when I shared them with my husband later that evening! 



I'm glad I chose the smaller pan so that I got more of a biscuit-y crust.  I think I could have done with cooking it a bit longer (now accounted for in the recipe) but it still had a crunch to it.  And my favourite pieces were definitely the edge pieces that had a nice caramelised edge to them!

 

 

With enough squares left for a couple more days, we're all set!  But be warned... You can't just eat one of them!  Which is why I'm glad I cut them into small little squares instead of big pieces... but that's up to you :)

No Spring in Toronto... only Winter and then a couple of weeks later WHAM Summer!  These Lemon Squares are a perfect flavour and taste for a sunny day!

 

☀  Enjoy!  ☀

 

A Taste of Britain: Cherry Bakewell Tray Bake

I love the chance to bake something new so last Sunday it was a post-church coffee and lunch afternoon so I made sure to dig out some recipes I had been wanting to try for a while.  I knew I wanted to do a tray bake as this would make enough to be a significant contribution to the sweet table and would be easiest to do.  Initially seeing as I work on Saturday I was looking for an easy recipe that wouldn't take too long, but oh well - that didn't happen but I LOVE how it all turned out and although the recipe had many stages it didn't take too long!  I was between two different recipes but that day the Cherry Bakewell won!  (Orange and Marzipan Tray Bake to come another day, another blog post...)

Cherries and Almonds.  Pastry and icing.  Strawberry jam and Cake.  This tray bake has some pretty awesome combinations!

I found the recipe here but instead of buying ready made sweet shortcrust pastry I made it!  Busy time is best time remember!!  Just a simple pastry recipe before going ahead with the rest of the recipe.

Here's how it looked post-oven but pre-slice!  

I kept it like this overnight to keep it fresh and sliced it into small squares (it made 35 in total) Sunday morning before taking most of it to church!  We may have had a square or two for breakfast as well!

What I love about Cherry Bakewell are the combination of the outer pastry edge, the bottom jam layer with spongey almond cake topped off with icing, cherries and almonds.  So yes, I love all of it!  This will be made many MANY more times!  I highly recommend you to try it :-)

And here is the first of my 'A Taste of Britain' blogging series - for all my British baking - keep an eye out for more British inspired bakes and makes coming soon!