Y’all probably don’t know my favorite part of the weekend is watching Pioneer Women on Sunday mornings. I get so many great recipes and I even cried my eyes out when I watched her daughters wedding episode. Today, I’m sharing her Lemon Bar recipe. I LOVE a good lemon bar! As a child I couldn’t eat enough. Over the last few years, I haven’t enjoyed the lemon bars I’ve eaten. I thought maybe my palette changed. I finally realized it has everything to do with the shortbread crust and the lemon filling ratio. I haven’t made them in about 15 years. My Mom also has a great recipe. I realized that the shortbread was too thin and the lemon filling was too overwhelming. The key to wider shortbread is a smaller pan. I was making mine in a 9×11 baking pan. With this recipe I changed it up to a 8×8 baking pan. I also used real lemons and zest instead of lemon juice from a squeeze bottle. Last but not least I cut my butter into small cube pieces and folded into the flour mixture. This process leaves air pockets of butter throughout the crust while baking and makes it insanely delicious. I hope you enjoy the recipe below as much as I do.
Ingredients
- 2 cups Flour
- 1/2 cup Sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 sticks (1 Cup) Salted Butter, Cut Into Small Cubes
- Filling
- 1-1/2 cup Sugar
- 1/4 cup Flour
- 4 whole Large Eggs
- Zest And Juice Of 4 Medium-sized Lemons
- Powdered Sugar, For Sifting
Instructions
- For the crust: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9-by-13-inch pan with butter. If you want a thicker crust, use a 9×9 pan instead.
- Stir together the flour, sugar, and salt. Add the butter to the bowl and use a pastry cutter to cut it all together until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.
- Press into the prepared pan and bake until golden around the edges, about 20 minutes.
- For the filling: Stir together the sugar and flour. Crack in the eggs and whisk to combine.
- Add the lemon zest and juice and mix until combined. Pour over the crust and bake about 20 minutes.
- Allow to cool in the fridge for a minimum of 2 hours, then sift powdered sugar over the top before cutting into squares.
- Store leftover lemon bars in the fridge.
