Once, in high school, I made lemon bars. And every year during the holidays since then, my Uncle Mike requests lemon bars as one of the many desserts we have. I haven’t taken him up on his request – mainly because I haven’t had time to find the recipe, search for a new recipe, and because I’m convinced nobody really likes lemon desserts.
Well, this year, I changed my mind. I mean, I LOVE lemon bars and lemon pound cake and many lemon desserts … so maybe other people do too? And while I was home for the holidays, I was browsing through a cookbook my mom had on hand, I happened to find an easy looking recipe my mom had marked – for lemon bars! I asked my mom what she thought and she encouraged me to try it. After all, Tate’s Bakeshop has some amazing chocolate chip cookies that my mom had replicated (we enjoy their cookies on Fire Island), and my uncle had been asking for lemon bars for quite a few years.
I’m glad I tried them out – they came out amazing! I’ll be definitely using this easy, and fast, recipe for years to come.
Luscious Lemon Bars
Here’s what you need:
For the crust/base:
- 1 cup butter, softened (I used 1 stick salted, 1 stick unsalted)
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup confectioners sugar
For the top/filling:
- 4 large eggs
- 1 3/4 cups sugar
- Grated zest from 1 lemon
- 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup lemon juice (According to the interwebs, you may need up to 4 lemons to make this … I luckily found a LARGE lemon and was able to obtain 1/2 c juice from just ONE!)
Here’s what you do:
For the crust/base:
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- In a medium bowl, mix the butter, flour and sugar with your hands till the mixture is well blended. I actually used a hand mixer on low to get the butter and flower well mixed, then used my hands to evenly distribute all the ingredients.
- Place the mixture in a 9 x 13-inch pan. Pat the mixture evenly on the bottom of the pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
For the top/filling:
- While the base is baking, beat the eggs.
- Add the sugar and lemon zest. Mix thoroughly.
- Add the flour and mix until everything is incorporated.
- When the base is done, remove the pan from the oven. Add the lemon juice to the sugar/lemon zest/flour mixture and mix well.
- Pour it over the warm base and bake the entire thing for 20 minutes.
- When cool, cut into squares or triangles (makes more bars). Sprinkle powdered sugar on top of finished bars just before serving.
- Enjoy some of the best lemon bars you’ve ever tasted!
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