Foodie Friday Homemade Lemon Bars

Okay, the box mix is fine, but there is nothing like the punch of homemade lemon bars, so pucker up!

Lemon Bars (Prep. Time about an hour. Makes 28-36 bars depending on how small you cut them) 

Crust: 

1 C. softened butter (2 sticks) 

½ C. granulated sugar 

2 C. flour 

¼ tsp. ground nutmeg 

½ tsp. lemon zest 

Lemon curd: 

4 eggs 

1 ½ C. granulated sugar 

¼ C flour 

Juice of 2 lemons 

Powdered sugar for dusting on top 

You will be making these in a 9X13 cake pan. 

Preheat oven to 350.  Mush the butter with a fork in a medium mixing bowl. Mix in flour and ½ cup sugar, lemon zest and nutmeg.  After mixing a little with a fork, use your hands to rub the flour and sugar into the butter until the mixture appears like coarse sand.  Press dough into the bottom of the ungreased cake pan.  You can press the dough a little up the sides to keep curd from sticking.  Bake for about 20 minutes until the crust is firm and a little brown.  Under-baking will give you a mushy crust while too brown will result in a tough crust.  While the crust is baking, clean the mixing bowl and whisk together 1 ½ cups sugar and ¼ cup flour.  Squeeze lemons over a small bowl using a juicer or through your fingers to catch the seeds. In another small bowl (I used paper bowls) whisk the eggs.  Add the lemon juice and eggs to the dry mixture, whisking until smooth.  When crust is done, pour lemon mixture into the pan and return to the oven. Bake another 20 minutes until the curd is set and lightly browned. 

 Allow to cool. Curd will firm up as the bars cool. Dust with powdered sugar.  

The crust will be nice and firm, so cutting with a metal spatula (I call them “flipper thingies”) with a bit of a sharp edge works nicely to slice out 2-inch squares. With all the butter in the crust they don’t stick at all, but I did run a knife around all the edges just to make sure the whole pan was loose after it cooled to room temperature.

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