Got your attention? I know YUM!!! Lemon•Citrus•Love!
I hope you like lemons cause you’re fixing’ to see a lot of that in this post. A recipe for some delicious, creamy, tangy lemon bars!
One of the girlfriends brought us these wonderful & huge lemons from her garden. So what else do you do aside of using them for your tea? Lots of baking!
Typically you think summer when you think of lemons. I think refreshing, citrus, love, and migraines!
See, this Valley girl grew up around citrus and enjoying it all the time during my childhood, but later found that I had migraines so often because I was/am allergic to citric acid. Imagine the sadness of that.
Over the years I’ve rationed myself to small doses of anything citrus-y but never lemon bars, due to the high content of citric acid in ’em. I do sometimes sacrifice myself to migraines to enjoy something citrus-y though. Such was the case here.
After juicing all the beautiful lemons, and my daughter convincing me to make lemon curd, and I needing to make a birthday treat for my nieces celebration, well…I decided to try making lemon bars—first time ever—virgin lemon bar baking going on! Visit on link here for the original RECIPE. The taste didn’t disappoint, I just wish they could’ve congealed a bit more, (and I even halved the oil called for). But the curd —OH MAN—-was super delicious and easy and overall these were FANTASTIC!
Lemon•Citrus•Love
Lemon•Citrus•Love Bars
Ingredients
- CRUST---
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 3 T confectioners’ sugar plus more for sprinkling
- 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
- ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 10 tablespoons/142 grams cold unsalted butter cut into cubes
- CURD--
- 4 to 6 lemons
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- 2 large eggs plus 3 yolks
- 1 ½ teaspoons cornstarch
- Pinch of fine sea salt
- 4 tablespoons butter
- ¼ cup fruity extra-virgin olive oil
- Confectioners’ sugar
- Flaky sea salt for sprinkling
Instructions
- Heat oven to 325 degrees and line a 9-by-9-inch baking pan with enough parchment to hang over two of the sides (to be used as handles later to lift the bars out of the pan).
- To make the shortbread base, pulse together the flour, granulated sugar, confectioners’ sugar, lemon zest and salt in a food processor, or whisk together in a large bowl.
- Add butter and pulse (or use two knives or your fingers) to cut the butter into the flour until a crumbly dough forms. Press dough into prepared pan and bake until shortbread is pale golden all over, 30 to 35 minutes.
- While the shortbread is baking, prepare the lemon curd: Grate 1/2 tablespoon zest from lemons and set aside.
- Squeeze lemons to yield 3/4 cup juice.
- In a small saucepan, whisk together lemon juice, sugar, eggs and yolks, cornstarch and fine sea salt over medium heat until boiling and thickened, 2 to 5 minutes.
- Make sure mixture comes to a boil and stays there for 30 seconds or so; you should see it thicken up before you take it off the heat.
- But once it boils do not cook for longer than 1 minute or you risk the curd thinning out again. Remove from heat and strain into a bowl. Whisk in butter, olive oil and lemon zest.
- When the shortbread is ready, take it out of the oven and carefully pour the lemon curd onto the shortbread base; return the pan to the oven. Bake until topping is just set, 10 to 15 minutes more. Allow to cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until cold before cutting into bars.
- Sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar and flaky sea salt right before serving.
Jacq’s birthday celebration was fun, and I think the lemon bars were a hit!
I still have lots of lemon juice reserved for later use and I’m pretty sure I will share my story! Thank you dear Laura for your friendship lemons ~
Maya thank you so much & for stopping by! If you ♥ lemons, this is definitely worth trying.
That looks amazing!