When life gives you lemons..Make Lemon Bars!

Really there are no lemons in my life right now, but I had to come up with something catchy! I made these wonderful lemon bars for a United Way benefit I'm participating in. We are doing drawings and the winner gets a goodie of their choice..from a list of goodies that I wanted to make! The second winner picked lemon bars much to my delight. Here they are plated up and ready to go.



I Love them myself so I got the bonus of nibbling on a couple. But made sure to plate up the rest of the extras and brought them to share at work.



I used the wonderful recipe from Michael Lee West's awesomely funny book Consuming Passions. It's in the chapter about funeral foods. The only thing I changed was to use *gasp* bottled lemon juice because I found myself without the real thing and orange peel instead of lemon for the same reason. Also she suggested a powdered sugar and lemon juice glaze and I just sprinkled with powdered sugar. I also easily doubled the recipe Here's her version, posted with her permission. Check out her beautiful blog Designs by Gollum

Lemon Squares
Yield: 16 Squares

To make the crust:

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup confectioner's sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter, cut up

Preheat the oven to 350°. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar and salt. Using a pastry blender, cut the butter into the mixture until it's crumbly. Press the dough into a greased 9x9 square pan. Bake 15-20 minutes. The crust should be lightly browned.

To make the Filling:

3 lg eggs
1 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon lemon zest, finely chopped
4 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 Tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, beat the eggs until blended. Add the sugar and blend. Add the zest. Gradually stir in the lemon juice. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the egg mixture and blend until smooth. Pour the mixture over the crust. Bake 25 minutes. Cool on a rack - do not remove from the pan.

To Make the topping:
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 Tablespoons lemon juice

Mix sugar and lemon juice Spread over cooled filling. When the icing sets, cut into squares.