Luscious lemon bars

I love lemon bars. I used to make them from a box all the time and never attempted to make them from scratch until now. Now I know that there are tons of recipes on the interwebs, but I didn't want to try one that was overly complicated or contained a lot of ingredients. Oh, and I only had the juice of one lemon (I used the zest to make a batch of Lärabars).

Eventually, I found this recipe on Pizzazzerie, and it looked promising. Since the full recipe called for the juice of two lemons, I had to cut the recipe in half (changes are not reflected below).  I also adjusted the baking times since I didn't make the full recipe.

These were good, but they were not my favorite lemon bars. The filling wasn't lemon-y enough for me, and it wasn't quite as soft as I wanted them. I'll be on the lookout for another recipe to try. I was proud of making these from scratch and forgoing the box mix though!

Ingredients

For the crust:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour

For the filling:

• 1 1/2 cups white sugar 
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour 
• 2 lemons, juiced
• 4 eggs

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

To make the crust, mix the butter, 2 cups of flour and 1/2 cup sugar in a medium bowl. Press into the bottom of an ungreased 9×13 inch pan. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes (I made half a recipe and baked for 15 minutes) in the preheated oven, or until firm and golden. 

To make the filling, whisk together the remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar and 1/4 cup flour in a separate bowl. Mix in the eggs and lemon juice and pour over the baked crust. Bake for an additional 20 minutes (my half recipe baked for 15 minutes). 

After the bars have cooled, cut and serve. You may want to sprinkle with powdered sugar for decoration.

Yield: ~32 bars (I cut the recipe in half and got 16 bars)

Source: Pizzazzerie