Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen

Trudie’s lemon squares

Whenever I make these lemon squares, I think of my sister, who is quite a few years older than me. The day she got married and took off with her husband, leaving me as the last one behind at home, felt like the end of the world to me at 15 years old. Then I got to visit them and it all changed when she served up a plate filled with these delicacies. From then on, I couldn’t wait to go visit. She always had something new and interesting and exciting going on in her house and life and her tins were filled with lemon squares and cookies of all sorts and the most delicious dried peaches straight from the farm….sounds like perhaps the main attraction for visiting! At some stage I inherited her recipe and it has become a favourite in our family too and of everybody else that “inherits ” it along the way.

It is a non – baking cookie/biscuit and can be kept in the fridge for a long time, if you’re so lucky to have any left to last that long.

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Trudie’s lemon squares

  • 2 packets of  butter biscuits (Petit beurre)
  • 250 g butter
  • 1 can of sweet condensed milk
  • 250 ml desiccated coconut
  • lemon juice and zest

Lemon icing:

  • About 20g butter
  • 450ml icing sugar
  • lemon zest and juice to taste
  1. Melt the butter over low heat and add the condensed milk.
  2. Stir in some lemon zest and juice to taste and mix well.
  3. Add the coconut.
  4. Break in the biscuits and mix well until the biscuits are finely broken up en well coated.
  5. Press into a greased lamington tin, 24 x 34 x 2cm.
  6. Leave to cool down completely or place in fridge.
  7. Combine the ingredients for the lemon icing and mix to a smooth icing.
  8. Cut in squares and decorate with some candied lemon and lime zest.

Serves about 48 squares

This is an entry for Christmas cookies from around the world 2007, here at Susan from Foodblogga.

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Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen

Hot chocolate our way

This post was a mother and daughter effort. Our eldest visited for the week end from Toulouse, where she’s doing her last year in architecture. Sharing a love for art and camera and food, we worked in a team to do “cocolat chaud à notre façon”. A mere twenty two years ago, she was sitting feet and all on the kitchen counter, licking from the mixing bowl. Now she is as apt at living an adult life as she was then at licking a bowl. I enjoyed this experience with her, making our hot chocolate, setting up for the photo shoot, choosing the best shot and ending with sipping our chocolat chaud.

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Chocolat chaud à notre façon(Hot chocolate our way)

  • Heat up a cup of milk per person.
  • Melt about 1 heaped tablespoon of cooking chocolate chips (70% cocoa) per cup, together with 2 tablespoons of water. Alternatively you can use 125 g of dark chocolate to 250 ml of milk.
  • Add the melted chocolate to the hot milk and simmer gently for about 5 minutes.
  • Remove from the stove and whisk with a frother(or in a chocolatiére) until foamy.
  • Pour into cups and sprinkle with cocoa.
  • Serve with brown sugar lumps on the side.

Variations:

  1. For a creamier version, replace some of the milk with cream.
  2. Add mint leaves to the milk to infuse and remove before adding the chocolate. Serve, topped with a mint leave, dusted with icing sugar.
  3. Add a cinnamon stick to the milk and infuse.
  4. Add some orange peel to infuse with the milk and serve afterwards with sugared orange peel dipped in chocolate.

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