My colleagues have become increasingly sugar conscious the past few years so while they still love to eat treats they’re eating less than before. I’ve been downsizing my recipes and using smaller tins but realised I didn’t have a 7-inch square tin, the perfect size for a small batch of brownies or squares.
I looked through the Everten website and found this Mondo Pro 17.5 cm square pan. The pan is made from commercial grade anodised aluminium steel, just like all my old pans. I still prefer aluminium pans over the new-fangled darker non-stick pans which tend to over bake the outer edges of my cakes.
Mondo is a bakeware range widely used by the food service industry and is now available to home bakers as well. The bakeware is perfect for both commercial and household use, as it has a 25-year guarantee and is rust, blister chip and warp resistant.
I used the tin when making this recipe for lemon poppy-seed bars, an old favourite. I thought about lining the tin with foil as the filling is inclined to leak but instead used baking paper. The filling did leak so there was a bit of baked on filling on the inside of the tin. Mondo Pro recommends hand washing the tin so that’s what I did and I’m pleased to say the residue came off really easily and the tin looks as good as new.
Here’s the recipe for you. For all my recipes I use 60g eggs, a 20 ml tablespoon and a 250 ml cup and my oven is conventional, not fan forced.
Lemon Poppy Seed Bars | Makes 10 bars or 9 squares.
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F (conventional oven). Grease and line the base and sides of a 7 inch (17.5 cm) square tin with baking paper or line it with well-greased aluminium foil.
Pastry
110 gm (3.75 oz) unsalted butter
⅓ cup icing sugar
½ tsp grated lemon rind
1 cup plain flour
3 tsp poppy seeds
In a food processor, combine the butter, icing sugar and grated lemon rind and process until smooth. Add the flour and process until a dough is formed, then add the poppy seeds. Whiz a few times until the poppy seeds are incorporated, then press into the tin. If you don't have a food processor you can make this by creaming the butter and sugar and lemon rind in a bowl before adding the remaining ingredients.
Bake at 180°C/350°F (conventional oven) for about 20 minutes or until the base is lightly browned. Put to one side while you make the topping. Lower the oven temperature to170°C/325°F (conventional oven).
Topping
¾ cup caster sugar
1½ tablespoons plain flour
1½ tsp grated lemon rind
3 eggs
⅓ cup of lemon juice
Icing sugar
In a bowl stir together the sugar, the flour and the grated lemon rind until combined. Add the eggs gradually and mix to a smooth paste. Finally, stir in the lemon juice and mix until combined. Pour the mixture over the still warm base and return to the oven. Bake until cooked, about 20-30 minutes.
While still warm, gently ease a knife between the paper lining and the tin as some of the filling may have escaped then sift the top of the bars with icing sugar. Allow cooling before cutting into squares or bars. You may need to recoat the bars with icing sugar just before serving.
