Lemon Bars

My family loves lemons , we love lemon meringue pie , we like lemon rice soup and we like lemon bars . Well , my husband’s favorite dessert is lemon meringue pie , i think i’ve posted an entry for that a while back ago . I need to make more , once lemon season is here .

Now , let’s talk about lemon bars , i never made lemon bars before this . But i did buy store bought lemon bars mix , it was super easy and they were alright . Suddenly , few days ago i ran across a recipe for homemade lemon bars . Hey .. why not trying it ? It happened to be a recipe from the Barefoot Contessa lady , i owned 90% of her books , i believe the only book i didn’t have was her very first book . So , after reading so many reviews , i wasn’t sure if i should try it . But .. curiosity got me , i usually never had a bad experience from her cook book . Well except for her latest Fool Proof book .. that’s another story .

But true , i never had a bad experience with her recipes , so i decided still to go along with it . I bought 12 lemons , small lemons from the store , i prefer small ones , because for some reason they’re easier to peel to get the zest and also they have more juice , easier to squeeze . Still 12 lemons weren’t enough to make 1 full cup of fresh lemon juice , luckily , i had 4 extra lemons in the fridge , and there it went i used 2 extra ones , to make 1 full cup .

Another thing that some of the reviewers complained about the filling tasted so gummy .. or smell so eggy .. because of the large amount of eggs in the recipe . I don’t really understand what gummy means here , is it like gummi bears ? LOL .. i guess . But about the egg smell , there is a reason why we needed lemon zest in the recipe for the filling , if you skip the zest , you probably will notice a strong smell of the eggs , which some people don’t really like .

Anyway , my Lemon Bars turned out great .. the filling turned out really good , almost like a lemon meringue pie ..

Direction :

For the crust :

2 sticks of unsalted butter

pinch of salt

1/2 cup of sugar

2 cups of flour

In a mixer , cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy . Then add salt and flour into the mixture slowly . until just combined . Remove from the bowl , spread on a baking dish 9×13 , using your hands and fingers press down the dough and spread all over evenly . Chill in the fridge .

For the filing

7 large eggs

2 cups of sugar

2 tbsp. of lemon zests

1 cup of fresh lemon juice

1 cup of flour

Bake the crust after chilling , at 350 F , for about 20 minutes . Take it out and them let it cool slightly . While it’s cooling , keep the oven on , start making the filling .

In a large bowl , whisk eggs , sugar , lemon zest and flour until it’s combined . Make sure there is no lumps , but chances are you will find LOTS of lumps . Once they’re all combined , use a strainer , pour the mixture into another bowl , pressing down any lumps you see , and you should have a really nice smooth filling now . Immediately pour into the crust , and immediately bake in the oven for 30 minutes or so . Once it’s done , let it come to room temperature before slicing them , and sprinkle with some powdered sugar if you’d like .