Eric’s Fist Full of Lemon Bars

Posted by Eric (December 24, 2009 at 1:50 pm)

Today I’m making lemon bars, and they shall be very lemony indeed.

I am what you might call a recipe “aggregator”—when I decide to try a new recipe, I look at a half dozen or more recipes online at favorite sites like All Recipes and the Food Network, and then mix them together on the general principle of putting in the largest amount of each ingredient given across all the recipes—especially the ingredients that are butter.

The tricky ingredient is salt, which is almost always underused; a good rule of thumb is “double the salt,” but you have to take care not to do that if you’re using a recipe by a cook who has already doubled it.

When I first developed this recipe about a year ago, I used the maximum amount of lemon juice and zest I found out there, and then some. But that meant a lot of painful zesting with a ratty old grater. Today I’m trying out a new Microplane Ultimate Citrus Tool. The entire household is giddy with excitement (my wife tells me that’s because it’s Christmas Eve, but I think it’s the new zester).

Crust

• 1 C butter (2 sticks)
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 C confectioners sugar
• 1/8 t salt

Filling

• 4 beaten eggs
• 2 C sugar
• 6 T flour
• 1/2-2/3 C fresh lemon juice
• 3 T lemon zest
• 1/8 t salt

Process

1. Mix the crust ingredients into a meal-like dough—crumbly and fine, just barely sticking together when pressed.
2. Spread crust mixture in 9″x13″ greased (buttered!) pan lined with wax-paper and then press down firmly and uniformly (the bottom of a cup can help with this)
3. Chill crust for about 30 minutes
4. Bake crust at 350°F for 15-20 minutes
5. Mix the filling ingredients together and pour over hot crust (careful not to let eggs separate out before your pour—whisk before pouring)
6. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until surface is firm

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