citrus squares...

These are the bomb. I had not made them in ages thinking that the kids wouldn't like such a strong citrus flavor. But recently I had my entire lemon tart stolen from me at an outing to a restaurant, by small hungry theives. I had only ordered it because I thought they would ignore it… but how wrong I was! After that, I started making these little citrus bars again. They are very lovely, the topping separates into two during the baking giving you a thin layer of baked lemon curd and thin layer of lemon meringue on top and is very, very delicious. Like a light summery version of millionaire shortbread, in fact.

The Base
250g (9oz) plain flour
85g/3oz icing sugar and extra for dusting
175g/6oz butter cut up into small squares

The Top
2 lemons
1 orange
4 eggs (large)
400g/14oz caster sugar
50g/2oz plain flour

Method
Heat your oven to 180/160 fan. Line the base and leave a good large overhang for the sides of a shallow rectangular tin (about a 23x33cm tin, a swiss roll tin or thereabouts, you don't have to be to exact with this one)

Put the flour, sugar and butter into a food processor and whizz until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Tip it into your tin and press down smoothing level with the back of a spoon . Bake for 20 mins until pale golden.

Make the top layer by finely grating the peel from both lemons and the orange. Squeeze the juice from the lemons and top it up to 120ml with the juice from the orange, discard the rest of the orange juice.

Whisk the eggs and sugar together (an electric whisk is best) until pale and fluffy. Add in the zest and juice and whisk again for a minute. Then add the flour and whisk again to mix well.

Pour over the shortbread base and bake for up to another 20 mins until the topping has just set. Cool completely in the tin, then lift out from the tin using your paper liner. Cut into 3 down the length and then 6 or 8 across. Store in the fridge.

Pour over the shortbread base and bake for up to another 20 mins until the topping has just set. Cool completely in the tin, then lift out from the tin using your paper liner. Cut into 3 down the length and then 6 or 8 across.