As March began, I saw that my daughter’s preschool would be talking about leprechauns and pots of gold. FYI, if Little Miss Traybakes found a pot of gold, she would apparently “buy more monkeys”. So my thoughts turned to something to make for St Patrick’s Day. One of my books has a recipe for ‘Homemade Irish Cream Liqueur’ but perhaps we’ll leave that for another day… (edited to add the link now that I’ve made it Homemade Irish Cream Liqueur)

And then I thought of baking something with a hint of green. There are two recipes for Chocolate Peppermint Squares in my books, both remarkably similar. The main difference being the option of coconut or cornflakes in the base. I opted to go with the coconut. I’ll update when I make the ones with cornflakes.

It’s a pretty straightforward bake. Just make sure you take the butter out of the fridge an hour or so before you start to bake – for both the base and the buttercream layer. This will make creaming the butter and sugar so much easier.

Don’t forget to sieve (or is it sift?) your cocoa powder and icing sugar. Both of these ingredients have a tendency to have lumps in them and when you sieve them, it makes mixing so much easier.

You should only need a couple of drops of peppermint extract as it really is quite strong stuff, so be careful if you’re pouring it over your mixing bowl.

And with the green food coloring, use your own judgement here! You should only need a few drops and it’s always better to add less at the beginning and adjust the color as your mix. Mine turned out quite a bright green, but I didn’t seen anyone complaining about the color.

The base of these Chocolate Peppermint Squares is quite crumbly when you first cut into it, so bear that in mind when you’re slicing it into portions. And, of course, any pieces that break off can be eaten by the baker!