Lemon Bars from Mom's Book

When I was at the store on Monday I bought a lemon because my original scone plan was to make cranberry lemon scones.  But then the strawberries beckoned and I was left with a lemon in my fridge.  Since I didn't really feel like cooking tonight (just had grilled ham and cheese for dinner) I decided to make some lemon bars!  I have never made these, lime bars are more my thing, but they turned out fantastic!  Nice and tart just like I like them!

These delicious things came from my great cookbook my mom gave me when I moved down to DC.  Thus the recipe is not online so I will write out everything here.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup confectioners' sugar, plus a little extra for the top

3 tbs. unsalted butter, soft

1/2 cup, plus 3 tbs. flour

3 large eggs

3/4 cup sugar

2 tsp. lemon zest

1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/8 tsp. salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Then I beat the 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar and the softened butter on medium speed until creamy.  Very important that the butter is slightly soft or it won't really cream, just clump.  

Doesn't look like a lot until I added the flour and mixed on low speed until it got crumbly.

Then I poured that into my pan.  Now the recipe says to use a 8x8 square pan which I happen not to own.  So I used a round cake pan with a diameter of 8 inches.  I pressed the crumbly mixture into the pan so that there was a pretty even layer along the bottom.

  

That then got baked for 10-12 minutes.  I wasn't sure about timing because I put it in a different pan then specified so I kept an eye on it.  Turned out the timing was still accurate.  Once this comes out of the oven I turned down the heat to 325 (I actually almost forgot to do this!)

Maybe a little over baked, no biggie.

While that was baking I made the filling.  First the eggs are mixed on medium speed until foamy.

Then I zested the lemon and squeezed out all the juice.  I was a little short on the juice (needed 1/3 cup, only had 1/4) so I made up the difference with a little lime juice I had in my fridge.  I added this along with the sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt to the eggs.

I mixed this all up until totally combined and then poured it onto the slightly cooled crust.

This was baked for 20-25 minutes or until set.  I only did 20 minutes and found the inner lemon part to be a little wet still.  Definitely cooked all of the way through, just a little goopy so it was hard to cut.  Not a big deal, just know to leave it in a little more next time!

I dusted it with powdered sugar (I used a little too much!) and let it cool on a wire rack.

I cut it into roughly 16 pieces.  The corners were a little small so of course I ate them immediately.

These turned out super delicious and I will definitely make them again!  My mom specified these as light when she wrote out the recipe in my book, maybe because they have very little butter compared to some other recipes I have seen (one even called for 2 whole sticks while this recipe doesn't even use 1/2 a stick!).  I totally cannot tell from tasting that they are light, just that they are awesome!

Sorry for my lack of cooking this week.  For some reason I was just in a baking mood.  Hopefully next week I will get back to some savory dishes I can eat for dinner and then have lots of leftovers!

Thanks for reading,

Liz