I love lemon flavored desserts. My mother makes the best lemon merengue pie that I could eat all day long. When I saw this recipe of Ina’s on the Food Network website I knew it wouldn’t be long before I was trying it.
It was a bit of work but the end result is worth it. Lately my dishes/desserts have not been turning out that well. I made a couple of breakfast dishes to eat while watching The Royal Wedding but they were awful. So it was no surprise to me when I actually had to make the dough twice because I thought I made it wrong the first time. It doesn’t look like a traditional dough. In fact, this is more of a shortbread dough so it will be crumbly and you need to work it to form it into a ball.
The lemon zest and fresh juice were two of the items that took a bit of time to get together. My fingers got scraped and hurt with the lemon so I stopped at 1 Tbsp of the zest and opted to add in some lemon extract instead of continuing with the zesting. It turned out great in my opinion.
Lemon Bars (Recipe adapted from Ina Garten)
Ingredients:
For the crust:
1/2 lb unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 c granulated sugar
2 c flour
1/8 tsp kosher salt
For the filling:
6 eggs at room temperature
3 c granulated sugar
1 Tbsp grated lemon zest (4 to 6 lemons)
3/4 c freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tsp lemon extract
1 c flour
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
For the crust, cream butter and sugar with electric mixer until light. With the mixer on low, add flour and salt to the butter until just mixed. Dump the dough onto a well-floured board and gather into a ball. Flatten the dough with floured hands and press it into a 9 by 13 by 2-inch baking sheet, building up a 1/2-inch edge on all sides. (Note: The dough will take a while to form into a ball and wikl require some work to spread it among thr baking sheet.) Chill.
Bake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes, until very lightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack. Leave the oven on.
For the filling, whisk together eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, extract and flour. Pour over the crust and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the filling is set. Let cool to room temperature.
Cut into squares and dust with confectioners’ sugar. Place in refrigerator to set.
Linked up at Sweets for a Saturday.
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