Lemon bars

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This article was published 07/12/2010 (5788 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Day 6 of the Free Press’s 21 Days of Holiday Cookies features Lemon Bars. We will be publishing one cookie recipe every day — Monday to Saturday — till Christmas.

Bar recipes are wonderful when you need a dessert and you’re pressed for time. Andrea Klymasz of Winnipeg offers a recipe for old-fashioned lemon squares.

Lemon bars

425 ml (1 3/4 cups) all-purpose flour

150 ml (1/2 cup) icing sugar

228 g (1 cup) butter

4 eggs

500 ml (2 cups) sugar, or less to taste

125 ml (1/2 cup) lemon juice, or more to taste

60 ml (1/4 cup) flour

2 ml (1/2 tsp) baking powder

Preheat oven to 175C (350F). Whisk together flour and icing sugar and cut in butter until a crumbly dough forms.

Press firmly into the bottom of a 33 x 22 cm (13 x 9 in) pan and bake for 15 minutes, or just until edges start to turn golden.

Using electric mixer, beat eggs, sugar and lemon juice in a medium bowl until sugar dissolves.

Add flour and baking powder and beat on low speed until blended.

Pour over baked crust and bake for 25 minutes, or until just beginning to turn light brown.

Sprinkle with icing sugar when cool.

Taster’s notes: I like a really strong lemon taste, so I would decrease the sugar and crank up the lemon juice. Tart or mellow, citrus makes a fresh counterpoint to the season’s heavier tastes.

Alison Gillmor
Writer

Studying at the University of Winnipeg and later Toronto’s York University, Alison Gillmor planned to become an art historian. She ended up catching the journalism bug when she started as visual arts reviewer at the Winnipeg Free Press in 1992.

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