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Extra Tangy Lemon Bars


The table counterpart loves lemon sweets. More than chocolate, ice cream, or cookies (unless they are lemon cookies). The desert most loved is a lemon curd braided sweet bread. While I agree it's oh so good, our current living conditions do not warrant the space to make lemon braided bread or cook it. Regulated to a 9x9 pan and after months and months of looking, I found Ina Garten's Lemon Bars and the reviews stated it wasn't too sweet and it was adaptable to 9x9 pan.  Perfect! 

Modifications Made:
Powder sugar was only added when plated to keep the sugar from becoming sticky when stored in the fridge overnight.

Scaled for Likability: Good
This crust was dense and held together well with the lemon, however, the butter overpowered the bar.  Neither the bar nor the curd was overwhelming sweet even with three cups of sugar in the curd itself!  My favorite part was the layer form on the curd when cooking.  Don't know if this was supposed to happen but it added a lovely color and texture element.


Edit July 19, 2020:
A week later Lemon Bars with Shortbread Crust was tried.


Modifications Made:
Zest was only used from the lemons it would take to make half cup of fresh juice.  Powder sugar was omitted.

Scaled for Likability:  Good
This was a great recipe and was super to easy to scale down to a 9x9 pan.  It was tangy and not overly sweet, has a nice hard base to offset the soft curd filling.  What a great combination.  Addition of the vanilla and the extra flour really changed the way the crust cooked and tasted.  Great served slightly warm or cold straight from the fridge.  

Both lemon bars were good but they are still not what is envisioned.  Next time, this shortbread recipe will act as the base to Ina Garten's curd.  Lemon bars are sweet and tangy and everything summer.  In fact, the only part I struggle with in wanting to make them again (all lemon bars really) is having to wait for the crust to cool before the filling is added and baked.  

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