Welcome to the first Bake it! club recipe. I’m so pleased lots of you have already said you’d like to join in and a big thank you to everyone who has blogged about it and put a badge on their blog.

If you want to know a bit more about how this is going to work please read this page all about Bake It!, which I will update each month. But very simply, I will put a recipe up each month, anyone can have a go at baking it, blogging about their yummy creations and adding pictures to the Flickr group. If you’d like to get a badge for your blog then you can copy and paste the code from the sidebar on my blog. At the end of the month I will put up a Linky tool and you can all add links to your blog post. Simples!

So this month I though we’d start with one of my favourites and quite a Summery recipe (ignore the rain!) – Lemon Squares. These are delicious squares of shortbread with a lemon topping and dusted with icing sugar. Great for lunch box treats too!

Ingredients

250g plain flour
75g icing sugar
175g butter, chilled and diced
pinch salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

For the lemon topping

2 unwaxed lemons
4 eggs
225g caster sugar
50g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
icing sugar for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease a baking tin, approx 24cm x 24cm x 4cm.

2. Put the shortbread ingredients (flour, icing sugar, salt, butter and vanilla extract) into a food processor and process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. If you don’t have a food processor you can rub the fat into the flour and sugar by hand or using a pastry blender.

3. Tip the mixture into the baking tin and press down with a spoon and/or your hands.

4. Bake for around 15 minutes until a light golden colour, remove from the oven but leave the oven on.

5. Grate the lemon zest and squeeze out the juice. Put this in the food processor with the rest of the topping ingredients and blitz briefly to combine into a thin batter. Again, if you don’t have a food processor you could use a whisk.

6. Pour the mix over the base and put back in the oven for another 15 minutes, until the topping is just set.

7. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely. Then cut into squares and dust with icing sugar. This recipe will make about 20 squares.

These are not suitable for freezing but can be kept in an airtight container for 4 days.

Now it’s your turn! If you’ve got any questions, feel free to leave a comment or drop me a line.

This month there is a little prize for one lucky baker. I will pick one entry from the Linky tool at random at 8pm on the 2nd August to receive a copy of Cupcake magic by Kate Shirazi, a set of cupcake coasters and some pretty cake cases.

Usually there will be a whole month to get baking but this month you’ve got just 2 weeks! I will put up a Linky on the 29th July and will pick a winner on the 2nd August, so you’ll have a few days to add your link.

Happy Baking!