Kricket Cakes

Lemon bars are one of John’s all time favorites. I am going to a yoga retreat this weekend and I didn’t want to leave John home all alone, so I decided to make some lemon bars to keep him company. When I asked John to name them, he refused, but after eating the first one he said, “all gone.”

I had never made lemon bars before and was a little fearful that they wouldn’t turn out right. However, they turned out pretty good for a first time experiment-very lemony and very tart! I think next time I will reduce the quantity of lemon filling by a third. I also think using meyer lemons when they are in season would be a good idea.

I got the base recipe from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. Once again, I reduced the sugar because I don’t like my sweets overly sweet. I added some cornstarch too to help with the consistency. This recipe makes approximately 16 rectangular bars.

Hopefully John will share some with friends as they are pretty rich!

For the Crust:

• 2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

For the Filling:

• 6 extra large eggs at room temperature
• 2 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 tablespoons lemon zest
• 1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (from 6-10 lemons)
• 1 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• confectioner’s sugar for dusting

To Make the Crust:

1. Whisk the flour and salt together in a small bowl, set aside.
2. Cream the butter and sugar in an electric mixer with the paddle attachment or with a hand mixer.
3. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and mix on low until just combined.
4. Gather the dough into a ball and then press it into a 13 x 9 inch baking pan, building up a 1/2 inch edge on all sides.
5. Chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
6. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
7. Bake the crust for 15-18 minutes or until lightly browned on top.
8. Remove from oven and let cool on wire rack.

To Make the Filling:

1. Turn the oven down to 325 degrees.
2. Whisk together the eggs and lemon juice in a small bowl, set aside.
3. Whisk together the flour, sugar, corn starch and lemon zest in a large bowl.
4. Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and gently whisk together.
5. Pour filling over cooled crust.
6. Bake 30-35 minutes until the filling is set.
7. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.
8. Dust with powdered sugar and cut into squares.

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 9:34 pm and is filed under Bars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.