Delight in the zesty flavors of homemade lemon bars for a refreshing treat

Hi Bold Bakers, since the beginning of Bigger Bolder Baking, hands down, one of the most requested videos has been for lemon bars. Finally, I'm happy to tell you that your wait is over, I have a fantastic recipe for you. The written recipe can be found on my website, BiggerBolderBaking.com, with hundreds of other recipes, so make sure you go over there and check them out. So into a nice large bowl, we're going to add in some flour, powdered sugar, and regular sugar. So this is a shortbread that we're making, so a really important ingredient is yummy butter. Now for this recipe the butter doesn't want to be really cold, have it around room temperature it'll make it so much easier to blend into the flour. So then with nice clean hands go in there and rub the butter into the flour until you get a nice soft dough that will form your shortbread. So the reason we add in two separate sugars is for different texture. The sugar makes it a little bit granular and then the powdered sugar makes it what we call short which is really dry and crumbly. So once the shortbread kind of clumps together in big clumps, you can feel it getting kind of wetter, it is ready. So here I have my little tin, this is an 8x8 tin and it's been buttered and lined. Now I'm just gonna take my shortbread and press it into the base of your tin. And then with your hand, just push it out into the base and make sure that it's nice and level. Well as level as you can. Okay, lovely. That's our shortbread, now what you want to do before we put it in the oven is we're going to prick it with a fork, just to make sure that it doesn't rise up. So just Just a few times on top, let the steam out. So now here's the thing with this recipe, you want to bake your shortbread off in advance before we add on the fillings, you want to make sure that it's fully cooked. So right now we're gonna pop this into the oven. You want to bake the shortbread off at 325°F or 160°C for roughly 25 minutes or until a very light golden color. So while our base is in the oven, let's make our filling. Now technically what this is, is somewhat of a lemon curd, it's really zesty and just delicious. So our first ingredient because it's a custard is egg yolks. Now if you don't eat eggs, unfortunately there is no substitute for this recipe because it's a really key ingredient. Next we're going to add in some sugar for sweetness. It's also going to counterbalance that lemon juice. Then our lemon juice. Lots of lovely lemon juice. Then some lemon zest. I absolutely adore lemon zest. It's one of my favorites. Then here I have some butter, it's room temperature, it's really soft. You just want it to be soft enough so it can mix into the rest of the ingredients. And then lastly I'm gonna add in a touch of vanilla because I love a little bit of vanilla in all my baking. Then we're just gonna whisk all the ingredients together. This is a super easy recipe and great for feeding a crowd so if you've got friends coming over or a party this is always without a doubt a fan favorite. So now you can probably see the reason why I said your butter has to be really soft because it has to just blend in with all of the other ingredients. So leave it out at room temperature for a few hours and it'll be grand. Okay lovely I'm gonna set set this aside and let's check on our shortbread. Okay lovely this is perfect now come here to me I want you to see what it looks like when it's done you just want it to be a very light golden brown color you don't need it dark at all just fully cooked through so this is perfect. Now we have our base we have our filling and all you want to do is just pour this straight on top for that lovely lemon layer. Perfect. You can already see we made these in no time and once you taste them I mean they're out of this world. So now these These guys are ready to be baked off. So bake your lemon bars off at 325°F or 160°C for roughly 40 minutes or until a light brown on top. So here we have our lovely looking lemon bars, now as you can see they're lightly golden brown on top because they don't need a whole lot of baking, and then you see the sides bubbled up, that's all our lovely lemon filling, these are gonna be absolutely gorgeous. Right now I'm just gonna set them over to the side, let them cool down and then we're gonna get them out of the tin and cut them. So once your lemon bars have cooled down slightly, just go ahead and lift them carefully out of the tin. Once they're cooled down they're so much easier to cut. And then what we're going to do is, because I like to be nice and generous, I'm going to cut these into 9 squares. So across, and across. I can already feel how thick these are, I'm excited to see them. So now traditionally lemon bars are always finished with a little bit of powdered sugar on top, and this makes them look really pretty. So I'm gonna generously dust them with the sugar, all over. Now if you want to cut these a little bit smaller you totally can, that's up to you. Gorgeous. Now let's lift one out and have a look. As you can see I like to do nice big slices. Okay so, full disclosure, this is my first time making lemon bars, and I've never even eaten one before. I've never had a lemon bar with all the requests that have come in, I've never eaten one. And I have to say without a doubt, this might be my favorite lemon dessert that I've made. The filling is so thick and you've got that lovely shortbread on the bottom, it's sweet and tangy at the same time, without a doubt I'm gonna be making these again. So you know my rule, if you make this recipe then rate it on my website. I hope you enjoyed this episode, hand on my heart, I really did because they were absolutely delicious. I'll see you back here really soon for more Bigger Bolder Baking.