Dale's Lemon Squares

Sunday, May 08, 2011

This week has been an interesting sort of week. A lot of webby stuff, a lot of designing, a lot of charity work (as soon as the new website is up, I'll post a link so you can look-see). I've been waiting oh-so-patiently to try out Dale's Lemon Squares. They came highly recommended in a little link earlier this week, and the printed-out recipe has been sitting on my desk, taking priority position on the pile marked 'things I'd rather be doing today'.

The recipe ('Annemarie's Lemon Bars' from allrecipes.com) gives you about 16 large lemon bars that consist of two layers: a sort of thick lemony custard on top of a crumbly shortcake base. I took some progress photos to show you what they look like when you make them up but they're not that flattering. The end result is far more convincing! So let's start with one of those:






















The layers aren't very distinct: I'd definitely make a double quantity of lemon 'topping' to give it the extra height, and possibly also use a much smaller baking tin. But don't they look deeeeelicious?

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup white sugar

2 eggs
3/4 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

Directions
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
To make crust: Mix together the butter, 1 1/3 cups flour and 1/4 cup sugar with a fork until crumbly. 

















It looks a bit oily from all the butter you add in, but you keep at it and it gets crumbly soon enough.

Press into an 8 inch square pan and bake for 20 minutes. Crust will look white. Do not brown!

















I don't have an 8-inch square tin so I improvised with one of my smaller round sandwich tins. The smaller the better: tall lemon bars would be great.  The white crust looks like shortbread: yum.

To make topping: Combine the eggs, 3/4 cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, baking powder and lemon juice in a blender. Blend until well mixed. Pour over pre-baked crust.





















My beautiful brand new liquidiser came with my Kenwood Chef and can you imagine - this is the first time I've had the opportunity to use it! Much glee comes from unwrapping a big box filled with kitchen goods. 

Return to oven and bake an additional 20 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Let bars cool before cutting.

















Ta da! I doubled the lemon juice (freshly squeezed) and added in some grated lemon rind because I can't bear to see any part of a lemon wasted. It added a nice zing, but I'd definitely consider doubling my doubled lemon to give it that proper lemon taste that you expect from lemon bars (think: Ticklemouse Lemon Creams and you'll know what I mean). Well done to Dale, it's a lovely recipe!

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Stacey is a collector of crafts, and experiments with colour and crafts through yarn, watercolours, illustrations and textiles. She lives at the seaside with her husband, her two amazing kids, and an enormous collection of yarn. When she's not working or knitting, she's making soap and baking bread.

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