The Best Lemon Squares
Do you know how simple it is to make Lemon Squares? Perfect dessert for a get together, whip this up in about an hour and dessert is ready for your gathering. They truly are the best Lemon Squares ever!
A lot of recipes out there have a lot of sugar in it, but I think a little less sugar goes a long way. These are a little bit sweet and a little bit tangy.
Just 6 ingredients make this delicious dessert.
Tips
Use cold butter when making the shortbread crust. Although a lot of the recipes for lemon squares suggest using room temperature butter, in my experience cold butter gives a better crumble. Also a little salt in the shortbread helps cut the sweetness a little bit.
Using a fork or a pastry blender, blend the ingredients together until it looks like course meal (see below), I used a fork to achieve this. I wouldn’t use your hands as that will cause the butter to soften too much and you will not achieve the texture needed.
Once you have something that looks like the above picture pack it into a lined 9×13 pan. I lined it with banking parchment paper, one sheet both ways and held the overhang with binder clips (see below).
Bake for 15-20 min at 350° or until golden brown. Once baked, remove from oven and set aside while you make the filling.
Firstly we add the sugar, flour and lemon zest. I highly recommend sifting the flour. You want to ensure that the filling is whisked well so that all ingredients are incorporated nicely.
Lemon Zest – too much or too little??
This recipe calls for the zest of one lemon, it’s up to you how much zest you prefer, I used the zest from a bigger sized lemon because I prefer the lemon flavour, if you would prefer it to be a little less lemony feel free to add half the zest. But of course this is a lemon dessert so hopefully you’ll be okay with that lemony flavour. The best tool to use to achieve this is a micro plane (pictured above).
Lemon Juice Squeezer – the best one (in my opinion of course)
Another note, while this calls for the juice of 2 lemons, lemons come in all different sizes so for this recipe it would be approximately 1/2 cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice. There are many lemon juice squeezers on the market, the one in the picture is the one I love the most, it can squeeze lemons and limes and really gets all of the juice out. Before juicing the lemon you should always rub the lemon between the counter and your hand like below, it helps get the juices flowing.
Make sure your mixture is mixed really well and that the flour is sifted.
But at the end of it all you have lovely lemon squares, and again just the right amount of sweet and tangy.
Give them a try and let me know how it goes. I hope you love them just as much as we do!
Recipe:
Ingredients:
Crust:
2 cups flour
1 cup cold butter
½ cup sugar
¼ cup salt
Filling:
1 ½ cup sugar
¼ cup flour
2 lemons juiced
4 eggs
Lemon zest
Method:
Crust:
- Combine all ingredients except butter in a bowl, add butter and using a fork or pastry blender mix together until it looks like crumble (see photo above);
- Add this mixture to a baking pan and pat down into pan
Filling:
- Add sugar, flour and lemon zest to a bowl and mix;
- Add eggs and lemon juice;
- Mix well and add on top of the crust;
- Bake at 350° for 20-30 min or until just set;
- Cool, cut and enjoy!
