Oh my stars, lemon bars!
February 17, 2010
The minute I mentioned that February would be all about brownies and bars, requests were coming out of the woodwork for lemon bars. I must admit that up until now I’ve had maybe two in my life. And maybe those weren’t the best in show, but I’ve just never been really impressed. Not a major lemon bar groupie.
It seems that I’m unusual in that respect. For most other people, at least within my peer group, lemon bars trigger shortness of breath, accelerated heart rate, and a quantity of drool that would make Pavlov jealous. So I figured what the heck, I’ll see what I can do.
As I frequently do, I found a recipe to use as a jumping off point, and then I tweaked the living bejeebus out of it. For this particular treat, I completely discarded the suggested base layer, and replaced it with a variation on mrslovey’s favorite sugar cookie recipe. Then I added some coconut for texture (which was surprisingly awesome), and nearly tripled the amount of lemon called for in the original. How did they come out? Pretty freaking delicious. While I’ll probably try to up the lemon factor even more next time, for now these should keep the junkies at bay.
LOVEY’S LEMON DELIGHTS
(BASE)
3/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon lemon extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
(TOPPING)
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup coconut
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1.2 teaspoon baking powder
juice and zest from one large lemon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons melted butter
- Preheat oven to 375F
- For base, cream together shortening, sugar, eggs, and extract. Then add flour, baking powder, salt, stir until well blended.
- Press dough firmly into ungreased 9×13 pan.
- Bake for 10 minutes, or until a light golden color. It will be a little puffy, this is okay.
- While crust is baking, mix all filling ingredients together until thoroughly blended.
- Pour filling over partially baked crust. Bake for an additional 12 to 17 minutes, until the top has a hint of golden brown (will probably be more pronounced around the edges).
- Cool completely in pan on cooling rack. Cut into bars.
loveysoven 
i LOVE that you’re calling your treats by your name! Lovey’s Lemon Delights!!! 🙂 they look amazing!
lemon loveliness!!!!!!!!!!!!! packed with some true pucker power!!!!!
I wonder how these compared and contrasted with the lime bars??
I’ll take two .
Amazing womyn create amazing sustenance! You go grrrrl!