Lemon Bars

In my last post I talked about how I made Lemon Ginger cookies from Coconut & Lime just to make Lemon Bars. So I made the lemon bars.

AND OOOH BOY ARE THEY GOOD!!!!

I'm so glad I made these and didn't eat all the cookies. I actually ended up crushing one too many cookies and had too many cookie crumbs left ofter-- so I think I might make them into the crust for a key lime pie or something at some point. I'm waiting on that. But in the meantime, yeah, I made these. And I still have some left-- they're so rich and decadent I can only eat half of one at a time... so I've been trying to have half of one a day (if not more). I'm hoping we can finish them this week, though they seem to be preserving well. But I want to make some blueberry boy bait, haha!!

So yes, about these... the cookie crumb is excellent. The lemon ginger cookies are the perfect flavor accompaniment-- mostly because of the lemon, but the ginger gives it a nice spice and sweetness that goes against the lemon bar. The lemon bar is rich and lemony-- sooo lemony, which is perfect. I actually didn't even use as much sugar as she suggested, because I didn't want a super sweet lemon bar, I wanted a lemony lemon bar. The powdered sugar on top is not only pretty but makes the whole thing taste lighter and sweeter... it's really a perfect summer treat.

These weren't hard at all to make. I mixed them all up in like 5-10 minutes. I finished and Jeff was like, really? They're done? They still had to finish baking but yeah, they were done, what a cinch! A nice treat to make for people coming over or if you just want something fast for desserts for a week. And if it's hot outside, these are sure to cool you down-- it had been 80s-100s here and I know I was snacking on them.

Now I don't have much to say about these... they're so awesome that I just want to say that. They're awesome. The only thing I can say is this recipe is quite different than the recipe we had at The Fresh Market-- which is the grocery store I used to work at during college in Savannah, Georgia. We made the lemon bars fresh in house (which was like, the only thing we made from scratch) and they consisted of much more sugar + egg to lemon ratio. They were good, but I think these are better by far... but I remember they had this five at a time cutter, it was like a pizza cutter but you know, five of them. You could set them to be any particular width and we had to cut the bars out. I was sooo bad at cutting them evenly, and true to this day, I'm sitll pretty bad at it though I use a single pizza cutter instead of a fanch shmancy one. But I did put them in little cupcake holders like we did at Fresh Market. So I tried to make them pretty for you guys, really.

Lemon Bars
Recipe from Coconut & Lime

4 eggs at room temperature
1 1/2 cups + 2 tablespoons sugar
3/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
3/4 cup flour
zest of 3 lemons
10-12 lemon ginger cookies (check this post or this post)
4 tablespoons butter, melted
confectioners' sugar for dusting


Oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Place the cookies in a large ziplock bag and crush them with your hands or a rolling pen. Measure out 2 cups worth of the crumbs and mix into a small bowl with the melted butter. Press firmly into a non-stick sprayed 8x8 baking dish (I use one that my friend John's grandma gave to me) and bake for 5 minutes.
Remove the cookie crust from the oven and allow to cool while...
In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and flour. Pour over the cookie crust.
Return the pan to the oven and bake for 35 minutes or until set and not at all shiny. Mine had a few small spots of light brown. Cool completely then sprinkle with confectioners' sugar, cut with a pizza cutter and serve.


I plan to have half of one with strawberry ice cream tonight.