The World's Best Lemon Bars

Heaven exists, and I've found it inside a tart, lemon filling nestled against a buttery, shortbread crust and dusted with sweet, powdered sugar. "The World's Best Lemon Bars", claimed the recipe title. But would it stand up to its claim? With a few minor adjustments on my part, the answer is a resounding "yes!!!"


Lemon bars are a happy medium for those who can't decide between cake or cookies. They are like an edible version of a great dress shirt....you can pair it with slacks or a skirt and look all jazzed-up, or wear it with jeans and look polished but still be casual. Lemon bars offer the same versatility and are equally delicious whether served with milk at the kitchen table or alongside tea and finger-sandwiches at a high-brow get-together.


The popularity of shortbread crust and lemon curd, both British favorites, date back to Renaissance times. But the lemon bars of today were most likely created in a United States kitchen sometime during the 1960s.


Depending upon your taste preferences, these lemon bars can be made sweeter or more tart. As is, I thought they were the perfect blend of soft, tart, lemony filling and sweet, buttery, shortbread crust. Having a difficult day? Meeting didn't go well? Kids are being a pain? Put a few lemon bars on your plate and, if only for a little while, all is suddenly right with the world.


Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup white sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tbsp. milk (optional)

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup lemon juice (1/3 c. for less-tart bars, 2/3 c. for mouth-puckering tart)

Powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. In a mixing bowl, stir together the soft butter, 1/2 cup sugar and 2 cups flour. Once it's thoroughly mixed, the dough will look like small pellets. To me, it seemed too dry, so I added 2 tbsp. milk to make the dough more pliable. This turned out perfect.



Shortbread crust pressed into the pan and ready to bake.



3. Press the crust dough into the bottom of an ungreased 13-inch by 9-inch pan to form a thick crust. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until the crust is firm and lightly golden.

4. While the crust is baking, whisk together the 4 eggs, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1/4 cup flour and 1/2 cup lemon juice. Pour the lemon filling into the crust as soon as you remove the pan from the oven.

The lemon filling is liquid-y when you pour it in and firms up once it comes out of the oven.

5. Return the pan to the oven and bake for another 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and immediately dust the top of the bars with powdered sugar. Allow the lemon bars to cool on the countertop for 30 minutes before slicing.

The finished product, fresh out of the oven and sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Baking Tips: Never substitute margarine for butter. You'll lose far more in taste than you'll save in money.

Slice the bars, put layers of them in a lid-covered storage container (with wax paper between each layer), and keep in the refrigerator. The bars are easier to slice before you refrigerate them but taste even more refreshing and delicious when cold. If you refrigerate the bars first, then slice them later, it's much harder to get the bars out of the pan. I learned this the hard way.



Scrumptious layers of shortbread, lemon filling, and powdered sugar.



Warning: It's easy to eat a lot of these in one sitting because the tartness of the lemon balances the butteriness of the crust. But don't be fooled! Too much of a good thing here results in a lemon bar stomach ache....these are RICH! I can vouch for this from personal experience.

And, as we say in the good 'ole US of A...."help yourself...one more bar won't hurt you!"