This recipe is so easy to make, proof and full of delicious zingy lemon flavour. The top just melts in your mouth, and the bottom is this crisp, delightful shortbread crust. Start by making the shortbread crust for the lemon bars.
Preheat your oven to 350°F. Get a 9 by 13 baking dish and line it with parchment paper. You can do this by hand in a bowl with a spatula, but let’s use a stand mixer if you have one.
You can sift this out into the bowl of your stand mixer, so sift all-purpose flour and salt to balance the sweetness and conventional sugar into a stand mixing bowl.
Whisk all the ingredients together with a wire whisk and pop it into your stand mixer with a paddle attachment. Add your unsalted melted butter to your bowl, and turn your stand mixer on low or stir and just drizzle your butter in.
Once you get a crumbly mixture, stop mixing and add in vanilla. Use your spatula to scrape the bowl and make sure everything is mixed. Then transfer your crumbled mixture into your prepared pan and spread it out, smoothing it around with your clean hands, then press it down with your clean hands to get it mostly even.
You can use your hands, knuckles, or even measuring cups. Make sure you get the corners; this is where the parchment-lined-up pan comes in handy because you can pull it out and not get anything sticking in the pan, which is so sad.
When it is pressed down, pop it into the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes. You can have it ever so slightly almost golden or it can be golden brown it depends on how much time you cook it.
In the meantime, process the sugar and lemon zest together, which will make the oils explode out of the skin into the sugar, and it is amazing; it is optional. Put your sugar into your food processor and zest the lemon using a microplane into the sugar, then whiz it up until all the zest has been broken up and your sugar has gone to a wonderful pastel lemon colour.
Once it is done, put it aside and make the filling, which takes the shortest time to come together, except for juicing the lemon, which takes a little bit longer.
To juice your lemon, you can use your juicer and set it aside and get your big bowl and add in your sugar mixture, add flour and give it a little bit of whisking to distribute the flour. Once it is mixed, crack in your room temperature eggs to the mixture and add in your lemon juice.
Mix everything in and be careful not to spill. Once it is mixed up and homogeneous, pour it into the shortbread crust that you took out of the oven, and it is still warm.
Bake it in the oven at 350F for about 25 minutes. The edges will be set-ish, and the inside will be a little bit jiggly. Turn it around halfway as it cools down; it will set completely, so do not overbake it because then it is kind of rubbery and hard.
Take it out of the oven, and It should chill in the fridge for about 2 hours, and it should be firm enough to cut. In the middle, it is yellow, and the edge starts to lighten up. Carefully remove the parchment, tilt it, remove it from the pan and peel the parchment paper away.
Dust it with conventional sugar, which is optional, and dampen your knife with a paper towel to give you a nice clean cut. Cut into your cake in between each cut; dampen your knife, then take a piece and enjoy.
Ingredients;
- 3 cups all-purpose flour 360g, divided: 2 1/2 cups for the crust and 1/2 cup for filling
- 2/3 cups powdered sugar 66g, for the shortbread, plus more for dusting
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 12 tbsp unsalted butter, melted (170g
- 3 tbsp lemon zest of three lemons
- 3 cups sugar 600g
- 8 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 cup lemon juice fresh, 240mL
Instructions;
- Heat oven to 350F and line a 9×13 baking dish with parchment paper.
- Whisk together 2 1/2 cups of flour (300g) with the powdered sugar and salt, then pour in the melted butter and mix until combined.
- You can also do this using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment. If you’d like, a dash of vanilla can be added in with the butter at this step.
- Sprinkle the dough into your lined pan and press down into a flat layer. Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes or until a light golden colour.
- While the crust is baking, add the sugar to a food processor and add the zest of three lemons. Pulse until the zest is fully incorporated and the sugar is a light yellow colour. If you don’t have a processor, just mince the zest and mix with the sugar in a bag or bowl.
- Add the sugar and remaining half cup of flour to a large bowl and mix well. You can sift together; however, the zest and sugar bits will need to get dumped out of the sifter as they might clog things up and not go through.
- Pour in the lemon juice and add the eggs, then mix very well until completely combined.
- Pour the filling onto the warm crust, then transfer to the oven and bake for about 25 minutes, turning halfway through the bake. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for an hour before chilling in the refrigerator for two hours.
- Dust with powdered sugar and cut into bars using a clean, sharp, damp knife.
