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| I hope this plant can star in future pictures, if you know what I mean. |
When life gives you lemons...make lemon bars! Okay, it's actually, when you have an opportunity to buy lemons, make lemon bars!
Recently introduced to the website Joy of Baking, I've been perusing for something nummy. I hadn't made something lemon-y in a while, and with our past consecutive days of sunshine I couldn't resist.
I had the Canadian and the Baker over for the project, and it was a lot of fun. The Baker had other social duties, so she left after only an hour. But we couldn't have done it without her because the Baker brought this bad boy--the Hamilton Scovill Model 121 Electric Hand Mixer. What a lifesaver! Both I and my right wrist are very thankful.
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| Not the exact model, but a close cousin of the Baker's mixer. Talk about old school. I am digging that beige/black color scheme. |
8x8 = 64 sq inches
9x13 = 117 sq inches
117/64 = 1.82 which I approximated to 2.
When we put down the shortbread, it didn't fill the entire pan. There were 1 inch strips of shortbread-lacking casserole dish.
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| The orange is the shortbread dough. The blue is the pyrex dish. |
The only consequence of this incomplete fill? When you pour on the lemon filling, there will be regions of the pyrex dish that will have only lemon filling and no shortbread. But really, this isn't a big issue.
I imagine that if you wanted to, you could flatten the shortbread to cover the entire pan. This would just make for a thinner shortbread layer. If you proceed in the manner that I laid down the shortbread, each bar is a little more than half of filling, and a little less than half of shortbread.
For the lemon work, remember to wash the lemons with water (and maybe even some soap) to remove chemicals such as pesticides. When you zest, try to only shave off the yellow with your grater and to avoid removing the rind (the white part) because that's inedible. After you zest, cut the lemons in half and squeeze the juice into a bowl. Pour the contents over a strainer into another cup to filter out the pulp and the seeds.
| This soup strainer works double duty in this recipe--as a lemon juice strainer and as a confectioner's sugar shaker! |
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| No shortbread dish? No problem! Pyrex casserole dishes work just fine. |
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| Lemon-licious!! |
Lemon Bars (Recipe adapted from Joyofbaking.com)
Fills a 9''x13'' Pyrex Casserole Dish.
Ingredients:
For the shortbread:
1 cup of butter (2 sticks) at room temperature (so that it is soft)
1/2 cup of confectioner's sugar
2 cups of flour
1/4 teaspoon of salt
For the lemon filling:
2 cups of white granulated sugar
4 eggs
2/3 cup of lemon juice (3 lemons worth)
2 tbsp of zest (4 lemons worth)
4 tbsp of flour
Recipe:
For the shortbread:
0. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
1. Combine the butter and confectioner's sugar in a bowl. Use electric mixer until the combination is smooth and creamy.
2. Combine flour and salt in another bowl. Mix together with fork.
3. Add dry ingredients slowly into butter/sugar mixture. Mix until even.
4. Add to pyrex dish. Initially flatten using spatula. Proceed with palms of hands.
5. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until brown around the edges. (I'm not sure, but I think that you don't want to bake in completely because it's going to bake again when you bake it with the added lemon filling. The Canadian and I baked the shortbread until it was done and uniformly a nice light sandy color, and the final product didn't seem to be affected)
6. Let it cool as you make the lemon filling.
For the lemon filling:
1. Add eggs one at a time to the sugar. Mix until smooth.
2. Add lemon juice and zest. Mix. (We would not recommend using an electric mixer for this step. Things start splashing around too much. Maybe more experienced bakers knew this already, but the Canadian and I did not...)
3. Add flour. Mix with spatula.
4. Once the shortbread mixture has completely cooled, pour the lemon filling mixture onto the shortbread.
5. Bake for 30 minutes until lemon filling has settled (The recipe called for 20 minutes, but we found that 30 minutes was necessary. At this point, the lemon filling had set, and it was still ooey-gooey delicious when we took a bite!)
Adding the finishing touches:
1. Using a confectioner's sugar shaker (Don't have one? Neither do I! Instead, I reused my soup strainer. If you pour some confectioner's sugar in the strainer, you can shower your lemon bars with sugar easily.)
2. Cut lemon bars into desired number of pieces.
3. Serve. We found that in order to serve these, the first piece that you cut (we recommend the corner), will be a sacrificed piece. Sacrificed in terms of structural integrity but not in terms of lemon-liciousness.
These bars are best served within 2-3 days. The shortbread is most crisp and the lemon filling most tangy immediately after baking. If you store it for later consumption, wrap the casserole dish and keep it in the refrigerator.
