1
Yesterday my 10 year old announced that he wanted to make something. He stated that he didn’t want me to help unless he needed it, he wanted to do everything himself. So we picked out a recipe for Lemon Bars of off some recipe cards I found at the thrift store.
He actually ended up making two different recipes, the one from the recipe card yesterday and one from the Farmer’s Almanac Cookbook today. They were both good, but the second batch was too sweet for me. He measured everything right, so if I had to pick, I would say the recipe card one. However, the lemon layer wasn’t very thick on the first one, so I would probably recommend whipping the eggs first to make it thicker. We may try them again as their flavor was really great :)
All in all it was a fun experience and Dominic did really well! He learned a lot about measuring, how to use the mixer, and even the food processor! I’ll have him cooking us dinner in no time :)
Luscious Lemon Bars
from Grandma’s Kitchen recipe cards
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup butter
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar, plus additional sifted confectioner’s sugar for garnish
4 teaspoons grated lemon zest, divided
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease 13×9 baking pan; set aside. Place flour, butter, 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar, 1 teaspoon lemon zest and the salt in bowl of food processor. Process until mixture forms coarse crumbs.
Press crumb mixture evenly into the prepared baking pan. bake until golden, about 18-20 minutes.
Beat granulated sugar, eggs, lemon juice and remaining 3 teaspoons lemon zest in medium bowl with an electric mixer set at medium speed until ingredients are well blended.
Pour mixture evenly over warm crust. Return to oven; bake until center is set and edges are golden, about 18-20 minutes. Remove pan to wire rack; cool completely.
Sprinkle sifted confectioners’ sugar over top. Cut into 2 x 1.5 inch bars.
Store lemon bars tightly covered at room temperature.
Recipe #2 – These are good, but too sweet for me
Lemon Squares
from The Old Farmer’s Almanac Everyday Cookbook
Crust:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) margarine
Filling:
4 large eggs, beaten
2 cups sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
confectioners’ sugar for dusting
Preheat oven to 350 F.
For crust: Put the flour and confectioners’ sugar into a large bowl and mix. Cut in the margarine. Press the crust into a 13×9 baking pan. Bake for 25 minutes.
For filling: Put all ingredients into a large bowl and stir to combine. Pour the filling onto the baked crust. Return the pan to the oven and bake 25 minutes more. Sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar, if desired. Cut into squares when cool.
Make 24 squares.
See the powdered sugar on his lip? Hee hee.
Do YOU have a favorite lemon bar recipe? Please share it with me, I’m trying to find one that I love!! :)
Aww! Good for him! Those bars look great.
Is Dominic a lefty? That might be why he’s such a great cook :)
I think I have a good lemon bar recipe; I’ll look around and get back to you.
Nancy
How weird that you should ask Nancy. Dominic is ambidextrous, but mostly a lefty, and TJ, one of my other boys who also loves to cook (another blog post for later) is also a lefty. AND so am I :) Hope you find that recipe!
When I was in college, I worked as a catering server. I can’t tell you how many lemon bars I served in those four years.
It’s cute to see a youngter show interest in cooking.
Well, you know a large percentage of creative people are lefties! But I’m not psychic or anything; I just saw the picture of him holding the knife with his left hand.
I did some poking around my cookbooks, and found some recipes for lemon squares – and I found them all online as well, so I hope the links work:
Cook’s Illustrated has a fabulous-sounding recipe, backed by all of their comparative research. You can find it on this blog post:
http://www.leitesculinaria.com/recipes/cookbook/lemon_bars.html
The biggest drawback is that it has 7 egg yolks.
Martha Stewart has a good-looking recipe in her Cookies book. It’s the same as the one posted here:
http://savorynotebook.blogspot.com/2005/09/lemon-squares.html
And here’s one from Martha’s Everyday Food book:
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/lemon-squares
My SIL is the lemon square queen in our family. I dont even try. I just enjoy hers. Youe son is so handsome. And cooks too. Someday he’ll be quite the catch!
Yay for Dominic! His lemon bars look delicious!
I love it when my kids want to help me in the kitchen. :) It’s terrific that our boys, as well as the girls, want to learn to cook and bake!
Those look really tasty. It’s plain to see that your little sweetie is following in his mum’s footsteps!!
That is so great that he wanted to do it all by himself – great job!
I’ve never made lemon bars before – those look great though!
My youngest who is now 15 loves to bake and I think its is so neat that you have two! Awesome. You are an amazing Mom! And And And the lemon bars look yummy Dominic Great job!
AmyRuth
The bars look awesome…wish I cud have a slice. :)
That’s awesome! He did great and at such a young age. It makes me happy when my kids like to cook. That will be a great talent to have when they grow up.
My almost 8 year old daughter got a couple of cookbooks for Christmas and everyday she is asking to cook something. We’re doing thumb print cookies, and chocolate dipped pretzel sticks today and sometime next week we want to try homemade pretzels.
That’s awesome that he did all of it on his own! My three love to cook and bake especially my youngest. She’s a kitchen bully. It usually winds up that all three want to help and then it’s not fun with everyone trying to do the same thing and arguing.
I prefer my lemon bars tangy too. The only ones I’ve made were out of the W-S Kids Baking book. They were very good and tangy and obviously easy as it’s a children’s cookbook. I blogged about ‘em earlier in my blogging career.(ha-ha) I’ll get you the link if your interested.
Happy 2009 to you and yours!!!
~ingrid
Congratulations to Dominic on this first solo cooking adventure. May you have many more!
In my experience, all lemon dessert recipes lack the tartness I like, so I always use extra lemon juice and/or cut the sugar. But I like lemon desserts quite tart. Most of my friends do too, but some people prefer them on the sweeter side. While my late Uncle Phil loved my cooking and baking, he could never take my lemon pie. He would always ask me to bake — anything but the lemon pie!
I love that your son made these by himself!
My favorite and go to recipe for lemon bars is from the joy of baking website. I actually posted on them a long time ago! The web address for the bar recipe is http://joyofbaking.com/LemonBars.html
The bars look great. I don’t have a lemon bar recipe but need to try them sometime. Your son is adorable!
Congratulations to Dominic on his wonderful accomplishment! They look delicious. He’s so handsome, too. :)
My favorite Lemon Bar recipes (I have 2) are Ina Garten’s (The Barefoot Contessa), and Nathalie Dupree’s.
I think you can find them both by googling if you want to take a look.
xo~m.