The ultimate combination of buttery shortbread and lemony top layer make these high requested and quick to disappear.
Course Dessert, bars
Ingredients
Crust
½cupbutter or margarine, slightly softened (1 stick, 4 oz)
1cupall-purpose flour (4.25 oz)
¼cupconfectioners' sugar (1 oz)
Topping
1cupgranulated sugar (7 oz)
2eggs
zest of 1 lemon (about 2 teaspoons)See note on zest below
3tablespoonslemon juice (1.5 oz)
¼teaspoonsalt
2tablespoonsall-purpose flour
½teaspoonbaking powder
Instructions
See note on pan size below - Heat oven to 350 °F for a glass baking dish or a light-colored metal pan. If using a dark metal pan reduce oven temperature to 325 °F. Grease the inside sides of the pan. It is not necessary to grease the bottom of the pan.
With an electric mixer or a hand-held pastry cutter, mix together the butter, flour, and powdered sugar until it looks like coarse crumbs. You don't want to make this into a dough, but the butter pieces should be small. Press into the bottom of an ungreased 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 inch pan. Bake for 18-20 minutes until the edges are just beginning to turn golden.
While the crust is baking, whisk together all of the topping ingredients.
Once the edges of the crust are barely golden brown, pull out the crust and pour the lemon topping over the warm crust. Return the pan to the oven and continue cooking for another 25 minutes until the topping is set and beginning to lightly brown.
Allow to cool completely, then sprinkle the top liberally with powdered sugar. Cut into pieces (a bench knife works really well to cut these). Store in an airtight container if they last more than an hour once cool.
Notes
For the lemon zest, use a microplane grater to zest just the yellow layer of the lemon peel. You do not want any of the white pith under the outer peel. This recipe as written is for a 9 x 9 or an 8 x 8 inch square pan. Cooking times will be slightly faster, and the bars will be thinner with the 9 x 9 size pan.This recipe doubles well to be cooked in a 9 x 13 inch pan. The cooking times should stay the same.