Lemon Bars

First, sorry this wasn't up yesterday. Things were busy and I just never got a chance to get on here and post this. I'm sorry. Now, let's get onto the important part, the baking!

Today, I made lemon bars. I have to admit, when I was coming up with this recipe, I accidentally added more of one ingredient than I meant to. But it worked out just fine, so I kept it in the recipe. I'll be pointing it out for those of you who want to cut it down.


Ingredients

Crust:
1 stick of butter, softened (AKA 8 Tablespoons)
1 1/2 cups of sugar (feel free to cut this in half if you prefer)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 cup flour
4 shakes from a salt shaker (just a pinch)
1 teaspoon of lemon zest

Filling:
3 eggs
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup flour
the zest from the rest of the lemon

Tools:

Grater
Aluminum Foil
8x8 square pan
Mixer
Spatula

The Recipe

Start by turning the oven onto 350 degrees and allowing it to preheat. While the oven does its thing, grab your grater and a lemon. Grate the entire zest off the lemon. Every little bit that you can get. Separate 1 teaspoon from the rest of the lemon zest.

Next, press aluminum foil into the bottom of the pan and either spray with cooking spray or rub with some butter to grease the pan.

Next step, make the crust! Combine the butter, sugar and powdered sugar. Mix well. Add in the flour, salt and 1 teaspoon of lemon zest. As I said before, I added way more sugar here than I originally planned. It came out great, but feel free to cut in half if you prefer. You will have a very crumbly mixture, like this:

Press this mixture firmly into your pan. Put it into the oven and allow the crust to cook for 20 minutes.

While the crust is cooking, make the filling.

Beat the eggs. Once the eggs are beaten, add the lemon juice and sugar and mix well. It should look slightly thick and very yellow, like this:

Now add the baking soda, flour and remaining lemon zest and mix well, so it looks something like this:

So yellowish and frothy and yummy! Now, if you're like me, it shouldn't take you the full 20 minutes, so feel free to do something else while the crust finishes cooking.

Once the crust is done, pull out it out of the oven and pour the filling on top. It should be close to full, but don't worry, it shouldn't spill over.  Let it cook for 30 minutes until the top is brown. Like this:

At this point, feel free to add powdered sugar to the top (if you want, totally optional!). Allow them to cool some before serving.

These come over very sweet and very solid. It has been quite a hit at our house!