Walnut-Coconut Squares with Citrus Frosting

. . . because I'm just not convinced we've all had enough sugar yet.
I made an orange cake with glaze the other day, and must say I came away with the conviction that while glaze is good, frosting is better. So when I came across this recipe from great-great-grandma Hattie's stash, complete with orange rind/lemon juice/powdered sugar frosting, I knew exactly how I wanted to use that final orange from the toe of the Christmas stocking.

An added bonus: the recipe also allows you to smush.

And I do love smushing.

See that crust to the left? Completely smushed, with fingers and all. If you have little ones around, they would love to help with this part.

The recipe came from an old newspaper article that's probably close to a hundred years old. I made a few changes, most notably ditching the raw egg yolks in the original frosting version.

There is only so far I will go for the sake of historical accuracy, and salmonella poisoning is a titch too far.

I also added quite a bit less than the 2 3/4 cups brown sugar called for in the original walnut filling. The 1 1/2 cups I added were plenty.

Enough chatter. On to the recipe (originally called Walnut Cookies, but as you can see from the photo above, it's a grossly inadequate name for these lovelies).

WALNUT-COCONUT SQUARES WITH CITRUS FROSTING

Crust:

1 c. butter

2 c. flour

Cream butter and flour in large bowl with pastry blender. Grease a 9 x 13-inch pan, and smush mixture into pan to make crust. Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes.

While crust is baking, prepare filling.
Filling:

4 eggs

1/4 c. flour

1/2 t. baking powder

1 1/4 c. shredded coconut

1 1/2 c. brown sugar

1/2 t. salt

1 1/2 t. vanilla

1 c. chopped nuts (I used pecans)

Mix all together.

Spread over baked crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, make frosting.

Frosting:

rind of 1 orange, grated

2 t. fresh lemon juice

2 T. orange juice

3 T. cream (I used this in lieu of the 2 egg yolks in the original recipe. If you don't have any, I'm sure milk would work fine)

about 2 c. powdered sugar

Mix all together until frosting is smooth. Drizzle over warm (cooked) cake and spread.

So here's the question: Have we all had enough sugar yet?