Krusteaz… I’m sorry!
Catherine | June 22, 2009Well, here I was ready to blame Krusteaz for all my problems in making lemon bars (or perhaps it’s “barz”), but it turns out that I just can’t make the dang things for love or money. Not for love, anyway. And I do love them, which is why I hit up my colleague and roommate (we share a classroom at school, not at home) for her awesome lemon squares recipe. She gave me the recipe, written out in her incredibly tidy handwriting, along with little pictures of lemons which she drew (she’s artistic!) and she even made us a batch. Thanks, Marjory!
(Funny story: my daughter Rachel ate almost all of said lemon squares on the way to the Panic! at the Disco concert and then became completely hyper. I’ve never heard a human talk so fast before.)
So I know that this recipe works, it just doesn’t work for me. When I made them, they turned out like lemon brownies – which isn’t really a BIG problem – lacking the stratification of the more traditional lemon square. I think that the problem was my failure to press the crust down firmly before baking it. So, press firmly and enjoy.Lemon Squares (from Marjory “Madame” Leas)
Crust:
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1 cup butter or margarine, softened
Mix together and PRESS FIRMLY into 9″ x 13″ pan. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 F.
Filling:
- 4 eggs
- 4 tbsp lemon juice
- grated rind of 1 lemon
- 2 cups sugar
- 4 tbsp flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
Preparation
- Beat eggs until light and fluffy. Add lemon juice and rind.
- Combine flour, sugar, and baking powder and add to egg mixture.
- Pour over baked crust and continue baking for 25 minutes or until it seems set when pan is jiggled.
- Sprinkle with powdered sugar.
- Cut into squares (not barz!) when cool.
About the author: I'm a Latin-teaching foodie who has lived (and eaten) in Fort Wayne for the past 10 years. I love all the ethnic grocery stores here and the great Mexican restaurants. Cooking is something that I really enjoy, although I tend to improvise a lot and experience my share of disasters. My parents are both wonderful cooks, as was my paternal grandmother (Oma), and I'm always trying to make things the way mom, dad or Oma did. Read more from this author
Maybe we should say “cut into orthogonal parallelepipeds” to be politically correct?
Oh my goodness — I can’t believe that I found this recipe on the Internet. But I can vouch for an absolute fact that it is about 50 years old. One of the women in our suburban community made a batch for our Bonco group and they were such a success that the other women had to have the recipe for “Roxi Rupp’s Lemon Squares.” Yes, it is “squares.” We all had little ones around the same age at the time and they loved them. My husband is one of the kids that is still nuts over them. When I saw this, I got out my recipe cards to compare. The only difference is that it calls for baking the crust for 15 minutes. Sometimes Roxi would either mix 2/3 cup of flaked coconut into the crust or sprinkle 2 cups of shredded coconut over the lemon filling before baking. Roxi was a scrub nurse and she didn’t have the inclination nor the time to do any fancy baking when it was her turn, so this was simple for her. How terrific would it be if she discovered this site with the recipe?!!!
Hi Elsie:
Glad you found our site and got a kick out of it. I am also glad to have Roxi’s variations on the recipe. My boyfriend loves coconut and always wants me to add it to stuff, so I’m glad to have an officially sanctioned way to mix it in to something that’s already so good.
The last time I made these for my daughter, the little darling complained that they weren’t lemony enough, so she dumped a LOT of lemon juice on top of her pieces. Next time I’ll probably try to honor her preference, especially since Leo seconded it.
Thanks again for reading!
Catherine