Lemon Bars
I've learned a lot about the cookbook and food-writing business in the eleven years we've been doing it. Among many things: you've got to balance old and new. A cookbook needs more than cutting-edge, tweaked, or twisted recipes. It needs some classics thrown in for good measure.
Because--and here's the real deal--most people will make the classics before they make the innovative.
Take my mother. When we're in the middle of a cookbook, we always hand her some recipes to test. When we were writing THE ULTIMATE COOK BOOK--click here for those 900 (!) recipes--I sent her a big packet. The first one she did? Snickerdoodles. Mind you, she'd had her own recipe since I was a kid. But she did the tried-and-true before she did anything else.
Same with our book REAL FOOD HAS CURVES, the step-by-step plan to get off processed food. Most people start the plan with the chocolate pudding recipe. And why not? But I'm always amazed that it's the first thing out of the gate, before anything more inventive. (For more on that recipe, see my blog post here.)
I'm not complaining. I would make it first, too. And often. Do, in fact. But it is strange how we're brought back to the standards in the kitchen. I wonder why that is.
Anyway, it all brings me to these lemon bars--which I adore. So old-fashioned and lovely. I think they're the perfect, bright, sour treat for a cold winter day. Or any day.
Let's get to it:
Position the rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 350F (175C). Lightly butter a 9-inch (23-cm) square pan. Set it aside.
Mix 1 1/2 cups (180 grams) all-purpose flour, 1/3 cup (35 grams) confectioners' sugar, and a pinch of salt in a large bowl. Cut 16 tablespoons (2 sticks or 240 grams) cool unsalted butter into little cubes and drop them into the bowl. Cut them into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter or a fork until the mixture resembles coarse, dry bran, pressing the butter repeatedly through the flour with the tines, repositioning everything incessantly, and going at it over and over again.
Press this mixture evenly across the bottom of the prepared baking pan, making sure there are no holes and compacting the crust with your fingers.
Bake until lightly browned at the edges, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and set on a wire rack.
Without delay, beat 1 1/2 cups (300 grams) granulated sugar, 3 large eggs, and 1 additional large egg yolk in a second large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until the mixture is quite smooth, like a thin saboyan, about 4 minutes. Beat in 6 tablespoons (90 ml) lemon juice and the finely grated zest of 1 lemon. Scrape down the inside of the bowl and beat in 2 tablespoons (15 grams) all-purpose flour until very smooth. Pour this mixture evenly over the hot crust.
Return the pan to the oven and continue baking until the filling is set, about 25 minutes. The filling should jiggle a bit when the pan is tapped, but there should be no noticeable liquid.
Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely, 1 to 2 hours, depending on where you set the thermostat for your house. (With oil prices ever rising, ours is set at icebox.) Once the pan is cool, sprinkle 2 tablespoons (10 grams) confectioners' sugar over the whole thing and cut it into 16 bar cookies.
Bruce brought a plateful to knitting the other night. As he walked out of the house, I said, "Save me one." Not a chance. An empty plate came home. Darn those classics.
Mark Scarbrough | Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 9:41AM | in Desserts, Fabulously Empty Calories bar cookies, cookies, lemon, lemon bars, lemon cookies
Reader Comments (9)
These look delicious, I will try this recipe for sure. Thanks again for the mesurements in grams, I appreciate it very much!
I love this! And we have fresh eggs, and lemons from the neighbor - perfect! Thanks Mark!
This reminds me of an interview I once heard on a local jazz radio station. The older dj was talking to a rising young star. Young musician was saying that he wants to show what he can do, express himself, and innovate. He doesn't want to waste time recording things other people had done. Old DJ was saying that he wants to hear what someone can do with a classic, because he has points of comparison and can judge whether the young musician really knows what he's doing. Maybe it's the same thinking going on. If I make an innovative recipe that I don't like, I don't know if it's supposed to taste like that and I don't like it, or if I screwed up making it. I know what chocolate pudding or lemon bars should taste like.
Oh, my Mom makes a similar version of those lemon bars and they are really good.
I see what you mean about balancing old and new recipes; while I love to experiment and go wild when it's just for me, I need those classics when I am cooking for a larger group, or just want to build my confidence.
Yep, you guys are right. And lemon bars are definitely a classic. I just love them. And I might start a riot by writing this, but what the heck: I'd rather have a lemon dessert any day over a chocolate one.
There. I said it. Wow.
M.
9-inch square pan or 9x13 pan? The text says square but the pic is rectangle. 2 sticks of butter seems like a lot for a square pan.
It IS a 9-inch square pan. The photo is elongated by the lens. And yes, that is A LOT of butter. These are occasional--very occasional--treats. Real butter is real food. But you are so right to treat fire as fire--or butter as butter.
Hi!
Love the blog. Just want to let you know that I have some Real Food Has Curves Bruce on our WHYY multimedia project Saturday. You can take a listen at www.whyy.org/fit. It's the pantry piece. Always good advice from you two!
The lemon bars sound wonderful.
I'll go for the classics nearly every time. I just saw a recipe for "kicked-up hummus". It included chipotle in adobo, adobo sauce, cilantro, lime juice and Sambal Oelek, in addition to most of the traditional hummus ingredients. It might be tasty, but I'll never know. It's too innovative for me.