Sunday, December 27, 2009

Lemon Bars


This is one of my most favorite combinations: buttery crust and sweet and bitter lemony filling.

My romance with this recipe started in the local natural foods market- I have tried their lemon bar and liked it so much that went to their chief to ask for a recipe. They told me that it is proprietary information and they can not give it to me. So I have started experimenting and trying different combinations until I have archived very comparable result.


Here is what you'll need:

For the dough:

1 3/4 sticks of butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp lemon extract
2 1/4 cup all- purpose flour



For the filling:

1 large lemon, graded with zest
1 large , preferably green, apple
1/2 cup sugar or to taste
1 tsp of lemon extract

The rest is quite easy. Beat the butter with sugar and salt together until soft and fluffy. Add lemon extract. Add in the flower and mix in carefully until the dough forms.

At this step I have tried few different ways of assembling the bars and my favorite ended up being to divide the dough in 2 part- one of them about 3/4 and the other about 1/4. Then refrigerate for about 30 min so that it is still soft but hard enough to grade.

While the dough if chilling, prepare the filling. Grade lemon and peeled apple on the grader, add the sugar and lemon extract.

I recommend using fluted tart pan and place in on the baking pan in the oven.. Butter it up some and grade the bigger part of the dough. Press in in lightly. Spread the filling, take care of the edges. Then grade the smaller part of the dough. don't worry if you can see the filling. It would come out fine.

Bake at 350F ( about 175C) until it is golden on top. Cool down before cutting.