Old Fashioned Lemon Bars Americas Test Kitchen, Cooks Country

These lemon bars have a buttery cookie chaff, a silken filling, and a dusting of confectioners' sugar for an old-fashioned and familiar contrast of tastes and textures.

Each of us has a childhood recollection of lemon bars like these. Except we're gonna hazard a gauge that these bars are better than the ones of your childhood. A tender cookie crust that's not different shortbread. A silken and tartly sweet filling that'south just puckery enough to make your eyes begin to twitch. That characteristic dusting of confectioners sugar as a final flourish. And just a smidgen smoother and more than refined effectually the edges than the ones you remember. (Merely you don't have to tell mom that.)–Renee Schettler Rossi

Lemon Bars

These lemon bars have a buttery cookie crust, a silken filling, and a dusting of confectioners' sugar for an sometime-fashioned and familiar contrast of tastes and textures.

Editors of Melt's Illustrated

Prep 25 mins

Cook 1 hour 5 mins

Total one hour 30 mins

For the cookie crust

▢ Nonstick vegetable spray (optional)
▢ i 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
▢ 1/two cup confectioners sugar plus more for dusting
▢ one/two teaspoon table salt
▢ 8 tablespoons unsalted butter softened but still cool, cutting into one-inch pieces, plus more for the baking dish

For the lemon filling

▢ 7 big egg yolks
▢ 2 whole large eggs
▢ one cup plus ii tablespoons granulated sugar
▢ 2/three cup lemon juice (from four to 5 large lemons, preferably organic), plus i/four cup finely grated zest
▢ Pinch of salt
▢ iv tablespoons unsalted butter cutting into four pieces
▢ 3 tablespoons heavy cream
▢ Confectioners' carbohydrate optional

Make the cookie crust

Spray a 9-inch (23-cm) square baking dish with nonstick cooking spray or generously butter information technology. Fold ii 16-inch (twoscore-cm) pieces of parchment paper or aluminum foil lengthwise to measure ix inches wide. Fit 1 canvas in the bottom of the buttered dish, pushing information technology into the corners and upwardly the sides of the dish (the overhang will assist in removing the baked bars). Fit the second sheet of foil in the dish in the same manner, perpendicular to the first sheet. Spray the sheets with nonstick cooking spray or generously butter them.
In a small basin, briefly process the flour, confectioners saccharide, and salt to combine. Add the butter and process until composite, 8 to 10 seconds. And so process until the mixture is pale yellow and resembles coarse repast, about iii 1-second pulses.
Sprinkle the mixture into the prepared dish and press it firmly with your fingers into an even layer over the unabridged bottom of the blistering dish. Refrigerate for xxx minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and arrange an oven rack to the center position. Bake the crust until golden brown, about xx minutes. Identify the pan on a wire rack while yous make the lemon filling. Do not let the crust absurd to room temperature.

Make the lemon filling

In a medium nonreactive bowl, whisk together the yolks and whole eggs until thoroughly combined but not frothy, 5 to 10 seconds. Add the granulated carbohydrate and whisk until just combined, about 5 to x seconds. Add the lemon juice, zest, and salt and whisk until combined, 5 to ten seconds.
Transfer the mixture to a medium nonreactive saucepan over medium-low oestrus, add the butter, and cook, stirring or whisking constantly, until the curd thickens considerably, 5 to x minutes.
Immediately pour the lemon mixture through a fine strainer set over a clean nonreactive bowl, pressing with the back of a spoon or spatula. Pour the heavy cream into the curd and stir until no streaks remain.

Gather the lemon confined

Immediately pour the lemon filling onto the nevertheless warm cookie crust and bake until the filling is shiny and opaque and the filling in the center portion of the baking dish jiggles slightly when you shake the edge of the baking dish, 10 to 15 minutes.
Let the confined cool in the baking dish on a wire rack until room temperature, about 45 minutes. Remove the bars from the dish using the parchment or foil every bit handles and transfer everything to a cutting board. Cut the lemon confined into two one/two inch squares, wiping the knife clean between cuts as necessary. Merely before serving, grit some confectioners' carbohydrate over the bars.

Serving: 1 bar Calories: 218 kcal (11%) Carbohydrates: 25 g (8%) Protein: 3 m (6%) Fat: 12 g (eighteen%) Saturated Fat: seven thousand (44%) Polyunsaturated Fat: 1 g Monounsaturated Fat: 4 thou Trans Fat: ane g Cholesterol: 128 mg (43%) Sodium: 87 mg (4%) Potassium: 42 mg (1%) Cobweb: 1 g (4%) Carbohydrate: sixteen g (18%) Vitamin A: 441 IU (9%) Vitamin C: 4 mg (v%) Calcium: 19 mg (2%) Iron: 1 mg (6%)

David Says

I made these lemon bars for The One'due south family unit when they were spending some fourth dimension with us this summertime.

Confession time: I oasis't fabricated lemon bars in more than than 25 years. Yeah, aye, I know. How could I have gone all that time bereft of lemon bars? I don't know exactly. But I will make these lemon bars again. And shortly.

The dough makes a lovely cookie-type crust. I added a few tablespoons of vanilla excerpt because I put my homemade vanilla in only about everything. Information technology lent a subtle, seductive vanilla odour and flavor to the confined. I wanted to crumble that crust dough and rub it all over my torso, but I resisted the impulse.

Also, I used an eight-past-8-inch square pan--I don't have a 9-by-ix, and I really don't run into the need to buy yet some other matter. The timing of the chaff and curd was the same as stated in the recipe.

And did I mention they're a cinch to toss together?

My only suggestion would be to remove the entire dessert from the pan, place it on a cutting lath, and and then refrigerate the whole shebang before cutting. It'll hold up better. Of course, what to do with those squares that just happen to crumble because they were too warm? Well, I wonder. I wonder, indeed.