What a surprise it was to find an email in the Bake Club mail box from Christoph Vogel from The Aucklander saying he would like to do a story about Bake Club! It was the day before I was going to the US for a month so I quickly answered some questions via email. Christophe also wanted a pic. I thought it would look much better if I actually had some baking in front of me so after dinner that night I made the quickest batch of shortbread ever. But because I was going away I didn’t have any eggs in the pantry, or lemons, so I used what I had: a little bit of frozen butter and frozen zest I had left, lime juice from a bottle and feijoas. Of course, use fresh citrus if you have it.

100 g butter
2/3 c icing sugar
2/3 c cornflour
2/3 c flour (I used a gluten-free mix)
3 Tbs feijoa zest
1 Tbs lime zest
3 Tbs lime juice

Heat oven to 150 C. Cream butter and sugar until pale. Mix in flour, juice and zest. Add little more zest or juice to taste - should be tangy. Knead to a dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and put in fridge for 15 mins. Roll dough out to about 1/2 cm thickness. Use a cookie cutter to make shapes. Place on lined oven tray a couple of cm apart to allow for spreading. Bake for 20-25 mins or until cooked through. You can also just press the dough into a slice tin, and cut into rectangles and prick with a fork before baking.

Shortbread is easy to experiment with - you can use any kind of citrus, add spices, nuts, whatever you have handy in your pantry.

Look out in your mailboxes in April for the free Aucklander for the Bake Club story.