Around this time of year, with Valentine’s Day and its requisite chocolate frenzy still a couple of weeks off, I get a craving for citrus desserts. You too? Lemon Bars – cool and tangy, totally underrated – are the answer to the mid-winter blahs.
Love them for their sweet/tart, creamy/crumbly contrasts, and for their sunny color that brightens up the grayest of January days. That color doesn’t come from the lemon juice, but from the egg yolks. To get the deepest color, use pasture-raised eggs with their dark orange yolks.
There seems to be a difference of opinion among bakers and Lemon Bar lovers about the perfect texture for Lemon Bars. According to The Pancake Princess and her lemon bar bake-off taste testers, many prefer a crisp cookie crust topped with soft lemon curd made on the stove-top. Sorry, but who wants a layer of slippery lemon curd sliding around on top of a hard cookie? (I’m all for dipping cookies into lemon curd for a fun, deconstructed dessert, but that’s not a Lemon Bar.)
My idea of the perfect Lemon Bar has a creamy, custard-like filling that bakes on top of the shortbread crust until the two layers meld so completely that there’s barely a dividing line between filling and crust. The bottom of the crust is firm, but as it rises to meets the custard in the center, it softens. When you take a bite, tart filling and sweet crust dissolve together on your tongue.
To get the texture I’m going for, I add two secret ingredients that you don’t usually find in Lemon Bars. The first is a small amount of baking powder in the filling, which gives the filling a subtle fluffy lightness. The second is sweetened flaked coconut in the crust. You won’t really taste the coconut, but you’ll notice how tender it makes the crust, and the touch of extra sweetness it brings.
Making these ahead and what to do with leftovers:
- Make these bars far enough ahead to give them chilling time before cutting – at least an hour, 2 is better.
- Store them in the refrigerator for best results. They’re best on the day they’re made, but will keep for 2 to 3 days.
- Wait until just before serving to dust them with confectioner’s sugar, or the sugar may dissolve into the bars and disappear. If you’ve already sugared the bars and you end up with leftovers, give them another quick dusting before serving.
- This recipe makes nine 3-inch square bars, but is easily doubled for baking in a 9×13-inch pan. For the larger quantity, increase the baking time for the filling step by 5 or 10 minutes, or as needed to set the filling.
Updated January 29: I recommend baking for the full 20 minutes in the filling step, to set the filling until it’s dry on the top, so it holds onto the confectioner’s sugar better. In this update I changed “15 to 20” to 20 minutes.
Lemon Bars
Ingredients
- For the crust:
- 1 cup (4¼ ounces or 120 grams) all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup (1 ounce or 28 grams) confectioner’s sugar
- ¼ cup lightly packed (1 ounce or 28 grams) sweetened flaked coconut
- 1/8 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt, or a large pinch of Morton’s
- 8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, preferably European style, cut into ½-inch cubes
- For the filling:
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- Zest from one large lemon (about 1 heaping tablespoon)
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- Pinch of kosher salt
- 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice, from 1 or 2 standard (not Meyer) lemons
- Softened butter for greasing the pan
- 2 to 3 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar for dusting
Directions
- Step 1 Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square metal baking pan. Line the pan with a sheet of parchment paper that’s long enough to extend out the sides to make handles for removing the finished bars from the pan. Make sure to push the parchment into the corners so the crust will have nice sharp edges. Butter the parchment.
- Step 2 Combine 1 cup (120 grams) of flour with the ¼ cup of confectioner’s sugar, the coconut and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Add the butter and process until the mixture comes together into moist clumps. Dump the dough into the prepared pan and use floured fingers to press it out to form an even crust.
- Step 3 Bake the crust until lightly golden, 16 to 18 minutes.
- Step 4 Combine the granulated sugar, 3 tablespoons of flour, the baking powder and a pinch of salt in a medium bowl and stir with a whisk. Add the eggs and lemon zest and whisk until smooth with no lumps of sugar remaining. Strain the lemon juice and whisk it in until the mixture is smooth. Pour the filling over the hot crust and return the pan to the oven to bake until the filling is set and dry, slightly puffed, and light golden, 20 minutes.
- Step 5 Remove the pan to a cooling rack to cool to room temperature, then chill uncovered for 1 hour.
- Step 6 Use the parchment handles to remove the block of bars from the pan to a cutting board. If the parchment paper has stuck to the edges of the bars, peeling it away from the edge will likely tear the bars. To make a clean edge, use a long, very sharp knife to cut a thin sliver off the edge on all sides where the bars meet the paper.
- Step 7 Put 2 to 3 tablespoons of confectioner’s sugar into a small sieve and gently tap it over the block of bars to create a thin and even coating of sugar. Carefully cut the block into 9 squares.
