Hungarian Fruit Squares.

A few weekends ago, I visited my mom for Mother's Day. She informed me the day before that I needed to make desert, so I chose something easy and delicious--Hungarian fruit squares. They're good for last-minute deserts because the materials are almost all household staples.

For this recipe, you need:

3 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup margarine/butter

2 eggs, beaten

2 tsp vanilla

2 10 oz. (possibly more, depending on your taste) jam/jelly/preserves of any flavour

optional: chopped walnuts

Simply sift together your flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. We ended up using salted butter, so we used half of the salt recommended (and it really made no difference). Using your mixer (or arm strength if you're a warrior), cut in your butter/margarine. Add your beaten eggs and vanilla, and mix.

Set your oven for 350 degrees and grease your cookie sheet (disregard my fruit squares photo...because obviously I had no cookie sheet). Divide your dough, 3/4 and 1/4, and stick your 1/4 mixture in the fridge. Spread the remaining 3/4 of the dough onto the cookie sheet. Spread half of your jam on one half of the dough, and the other half on the other. I chose this great kiwi jam and also conchord grape jam that Cody's dad made. We had a ton of both, and they were delicious!

Once the remaining 1/4 is fairly chilled, spread some flour on your work surface (and your rolling pin...or uhh Pom glass as was the case for me) and roll it out. Then, cut it in thin strips for lattice-work over the top. My grandmother used to use a fancy-edged tool to make it look really pretty, but it will look nice either way. You might want to try to press the edges of the lattice into the bottom dough, but it really is fine either way. At this point, you can sprinkle a few walnuts over the top. I chose not to because we didn't have walnuts on hand, and because Cody is allergic to nuts.

Bake for 30 minutes, cut, and serve!