Lola’s Kitchen is a feature on Lola’s Reviews where I talk about all things related to food, cooking and baking. These posts can be recipe posts, tens list posts about food or recipes or more discussion type posts about food. I love cooking and spend some time in the kitchen almost every day, so I wanted to give it a place on my blog as well. The banner for this feature is designed by Michelle from Limabean Designs.
My boyfriend and I both like lemon flavoured things so when I saw a recipe on Pinterest for lemon bars I knew I had to give it a try. It’s sweet, lemony and doesn’t take too much time to prepare. It’s great for when you want something sweet and doesn’t want to stand int he kitchen for too long, besides the lemon all the other ingredients are those I usually have at home, so that’s good to.
This recipe is based on Your Home Based Mom her Best Lemon Bars Recipe.
Ingredients
Crust Ingredients
- Butter – 113 gram/ 1/2 cup
- Flour – 125 gram/ 1 cup
- Powdered sugar – 31 gram/ 1/4 cup
- Water – a tiny bit (optional)
Lemon filling Ingredients
- Sugar – 150 gram/ 3/4 cup
- Flour – 15 gram/ 2 tablespoons
- Baking Powder – 1/2 teaspoon
- Eggs – 2
- Lemon Juice – 2 tablespoons
- Grated peel of 1 lemon
Method
- Preheat the oven at 180 degrees Celsius/ 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- In a medium bowl combine the butter (cut into tiny squares first), flour and powdered sugar for the crust. Mix together with your hands. You can wet your hands a little bit to make the kneading easier.
- Press the dough in a oven proof pan covered with baking paper. And bake for 15 minutes.
- Now start on the lemon filling. Combined the sugar, flour and baking powder in a medium sized bowl. Then add the eggs, lemon juice and grated lemon peel and mix well.
- Once the crust is out of the oven pour the lemon mixture on top. Put it back in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes. The edges and top should get a bit brown and look a bit weird, but that’s okay, that’s how it’s supposed to look (see pictures). If it isn’t done yet after 20 minutes, set the temperature a bit lower and let it stand for another 5 minutes.
- Let it cool down and cut it into pieces and eat!
Pictures
Variation Tips
- Lemon Bars with icing. Like Your Home Based Mom her Best Lemon Bars Recipe you can add some icing on top of your lemon bars. Combine 3/4 cup/ 93 gram powdered sugar and some lemon juice till the glaze is soft and add that on top of the lemon bars.
- Orange Bars. Instead of lemon add 2 tablespoons orange juice and the grated peel of two oranges.
My mom used to make a Lemon Bar that was similar to this. It might even be the same recipe. I haven’t had it since I was little. I used to eat the topping part raw. I loved it. I love lemon bars, but DH does not. I also don’t make a lot of sweets, because I have no self control when it comes to eating them (especially while cooling them LOL). Those look great. Yum!!
Melanie Simmons @mlsimmons recently posted…Audiobook Review: Rogue Descendant by Jenna Black (@mlsimmons, @jennablack, @sereads, @tantoraudio)
Here in the Netherlands lemon bars aren’t common, so I never had them as a kid, only found out about these when I found the recipe on pinterest recently. I do like them. Maybe if you have a smaller oven proof bowl, you can half the recipe and make a smaller amount?
I’m not very good at baking [because I don’t like to measure] but this looks easy and fast as you said. My kids do love to bake and we all love lemons. We eat tons of lemons at home so they are going to love your recipe Lola! Thanks for sharing it!
Daniela Ark recently posted…In the Spotlight [23]: Blogger Interview – Michelle @ Because Reading is Better than Real Life
Measuring things right is pretty essential to baking indeed. I hope you and your kids give this one a try and let me know how everyone liked it if you do.
Lola recently posted…Sunday Post #177
Mmmm, I love lemon bars!! They are a big favorite for me. 🙂
S. J. Pajonas recently posted…Hello Kitty Tropical Mango Marshmallows
When I tried out this recipe it was the first time I ever ate them, here in the Netherlands they aren’t really common, but they are really good!
Lola recently posted…Lola’s Kitchen: Lemon Bars Recipe
I love lemon bars. I always crave them when I’m sick and then drizzle honey on the top. 🙂 I’ve never made it this way with a crust base before. I will have to give this recipe a try.
Kristin (Book Sniffers Anonymous) recently posted…Review: Nuts by Alice Clayton
Just curious, but how do you eat them without a crust base? This crust tasted pretty good too and they bars really taste like lemon, yum! I hope you’ll give this a try!
When I’ve made it I’ve used a yellow cake mix for the bottom and then make like a lemon pudding for the top. Clearly the cheaters way for a lemon bar 😉 but when you’re sick it, it works.
Kristin recently posted…Review: Nuts by Alice Clayton
Oh that sounds good too! Now I want to try it with cake as bottom next time. Thanks for the idea 🙂
Those lemon bars look so good.
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They taste as good as they look!
I don’t think I’ve ever had lemon bars. But they seem like they have the same general ingredients as most cookies, cakes, desserts, etc., and I like lemon. So I’d probably like them. And that’s cool that you can them with orange too. I wonder what other fruit they work with. I suppose much of the flavor comes from the peel though, so anything without a peel you can grate might not work so well.
Kristen @ Metaphors and Moonlight recently posted…Book Review + Quiz: A Criminal Magic by Lee Kelly + Who Would You Be in a Magic Prohibition Era?
If you like lemon you probably will like lemon bars as well, they are like cookies with lemon filling on top. It’s pretty good!
Yes most of the flavour comes from the peel, so you need a fruit with a strong peel flavour to have it work. So most citrus fruits would work probably, but besides that not sure. You could try to use the fruit itself instead of the peel, but probably harder to get enough flavour without ruining the texture.
I tried adding a bit more orange juice to the orange ones and that already make the texture of the filling weird, so you have to be carefuller not to add too much extra fluids.
I love lemon bars, too. Haven’t made them in a while. I pretty much love most fruit bars, but lime bars are a great blend of tart and sweet. Those are my second favorite.
Sophia Rose recently posted…His Secret Baby by Vanessa Waltz #Review
Oh great idea to make these with lime! I haven’t tried that yet. It’s a good combination of flavours indeed.
I love easy desserts like that. Bars are so nice to take to events and such. And now I want dessert! (it’s 545am here so that’s really not gonna happen or rather shouldn’t happen lol)
anna (herding cats & burning soup) recently posted…Audio Files– {Irresistible Force by DD Ayres} & {Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs}
It’s never too late for dessert ;). And yes these are easy to make and you still have quite a bunch of bars.