My son introduced me to a "sub-reddit" devoted entirely to Lemon Bars...yes, that's right, there are almost 12,000 people in the JustHoodLemonBars community...and they have a lot of opinions about zest, amount of juice, ratio of base to filling, sweet vs. tart...and so much more.
We took a whack at baking Luscious Lemon Bars. And, while we needed to fix the base-to-filling ratio on the next batch, this rabbit hole of a distraction was great for a few days. Full disclosure, on the first batch, we ended up scraping the lemon filling/curd off the top and eating it over vanilla ice cream—and my son ate it on toast, because well, yummy! Enjoy!
Ingredients
For the Crust:
1 cup unsalted butter — softened at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar (granulated/fine grain/caster)
2 cups flour (all purpose)
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
For the Filling:
6 extra-large eggs at room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup finely grated lemon zest (4 to 6 lemons)
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (strain to remove any seeds)
1/2 cup flour
Confectioners' (icing) sugar, for dusting
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 F/180 C.
Line a glass 9 x 13 baking pan with parchment/baking paper. And grease the paper.
For the crust, cream the butter and sugar until light. Combine the flour and salt in a separate bowl. With the mixer on low, add to the butter until just mixed. It will form a clumpy/crumbly mixture.
Dump the dough into the pan and press it flat to form a bottom crust, slightly working up the edges about 1/2 an inch. Chill the crust for about 20 minutes.
Remove crust from refrigerator and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until very lightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack. Leave the oven on.
For the filling, whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and flour. Pour over the crust and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the filling is set. Let cool to room temperature on a wire rack. This may take a few hours. You can also cool for 30 minutes on a rack and then chill for an hour to help the filling set.
Cut into squares and dust with confectioners' sugar pushed through a fine mesh sieve.
Store covered in the refrigerator.
Freeze for later: Do not dust with sugar. Cut into squares and wrap tightly with plastic wrap and then foil. When you're ready to eat, defrost slightly and dust with icing sugar for a zingy lemon sorbet-style treat!
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