How To Make Lemon Bars with Claire Saffitz | Dessert Person

Vinnie can you hold this don't let it don't let it touch it is it heavy I've never felt so important hi everyone I'm Claire staffitz welcome to my home kitchen today I'm showing you a recipe for a classic lemon bars it's so bright and Lemony and delicious perfect for winter time to sort of brighten your day but also a recipe great any time of the year I make a curd which is a little bit of an upgrade to the usual lemon bar recipe it's pretty easy I'm going to show you how to make it [Music] dude [Music] the classic lemon bar recipe there's a shortbread crust and a lemon filling now typically the lemon filling is like a simple stir together eggs lemon juice a lot of sugar add a little bit of flour but really that recipe to me like reads a little bit sweet and I want some of the sugar to be taken out I want to maintain this like very very bright lemon flavor I like my lemon desserts to be like almost puckeringly tart and then of course they're covered with powdered sugar so that helps to bring things sort of Back in Balance with you know a really sour lemon filling so I like to use a curd as the filling lemon curd one of my favorite things to make and it helps to bring a kind of body to the filling that doesn't just make it like so incredibly sweet plus you get this set from egg yolks and it's like rich but not too rich lemony but not too lemony and sweet but not too sweet ingredients very very straightforward I have lemons I'm going to use juice and zest a dozen eggs the recipe uses quite a lot of eggs to set the filling kosher salt unsalted butter which goes both in the shortbread base and the curd granulated sugar powdered sugar and all-purpose flour for special equipment I have a square baking dish this is a porcelain bacon dish by Maiden our sponsor I have like a rasp style grater for lemon zest and then just a large saucepan for making the curd I'm going to use this citrus juicer because I need a cup and a half of lemon juice but that's not required at all this makes it faster before I get into the recipe I want to thank our friends at Maiden we've been partnering with them for a long time we've clicked in their carbon steel in their stainless steel cookware but today we're really highlighting their porcelain bakeware I'm going to be making the lemon bars in this Square baking dish I love baking a porcelain because it's naturally non-stick non-porous maidens is made in France from a centuries-old proprietary recipe I love that it's thermal shock resistant so you can go from the fridge or freezer straight to the oven it's oven safe up to 650 degrees plus so easy to clean and it looks beautiful on your table this version has a hand-painted blue stripe it's so pretty and perfect for holiday baking so this season I plan on making bar cookies brownies fudge but also Savory dishes like rattan's mac and cheese that kind of thing lasagna check the description below there's an offer code for 10 off your total order so go to maidencookware.com check out the baking dish and their whole range of bakeware and cookware okay back to the recipe so the first step for lemon bars is to make the crust or the base typically this is like a classic shortbread so that's what I'm going to make not really like Reinventing the wheel here I have a cup and a quarter of all-purpose flour five tablespoons of powdered sugar a little bit of kosher salt and 10 tablespoons of cold unsalted butter so I'm going to start to put this together although before I make the shortbread I do want to just quickly line the pan that's just to help me lift out the bars when they're baked and parchment is preferable to aluminum for lemon bars because the aluminum can react with the lemon curd because it's so acidic it reacts very easily I'm going to cut a little bit of parchment just so that it's the same width as the bottom of my baking dish I'm just brushing a little bit of melted butter to prevent sticking and then it gives something for the parchment paper to stick to and I'm just lining the bottom in two longer sides I don't need to line the other sides so now I have this nice surface for the bars okay so that's prepping your pan no need to grease the parchment paper and now I'm going to make my shortbread base so I have my flower I already know this bowl is too small but I'm going with it I'm going to do about a half teaspoon of kosher salt and I'm going to hold on to the Salt because I'll throw a pinch into the lemon filling the powdered sugar and now I have 10 tablespoons of butter and I want to cut this into pieces it's cold which is important you'll get the most tender shortbread starting with cold butter I'm going to cut this into cubes so I'm going to throw that into my dry mix I don't need any mixer for this I'm not going to use a food processor this whole thing can be done by hand which is really nice and now I want to toss all of this together again this bowl is way too small but I'm going to use my fingertips to smash the butter into the flour mixture it's kind of like if you're making pie dough if you've done that by hand before the idea is just to get this well Blended you can see it kind of is forming a little bit of like a Shaggy dough so I'm going to continue to work and smash in any butter pieces I do want it to be uniform and texture so I was referring to pie dough before but you want to go much further than you would for pie dough with pie dough you would leave the pieces of butter like you know about the size of a pea and here I want to go until they basically totally disappear into the flour mixture so we're not adding any liquid with shortbread it's basically butter sugar flour those are really the only ingredients so this is getting that kind of classic shortbread look crumbly but not dry so once it comes together which it almost has I'm going to take it out of the bowl and I'm going to do a little Quick Step called frezaj what's called you can spell like f-r-a i-s-a-g-e or something okay so here's what you do I'm going to bring together the dough kind of an amount make sure it all holds together then I'm going to use my bowl scraper you could use a bench scraper you could kind of use anything with like a straight edge and I'm going to in a sense smear the dough little by little across the board normally I would do it toward myself but I'll do it toward you so you can see and this is helping to further blend the butter into the flour mixture so you see that streak of butter right there that's an example of how this technique is really creating a more uniform texture so it's really kind of working that butter in so then as I'm completing that motion I'm just scraping it into the pan seamlessly into the dough all of that goes to the bottom of the baking dish the next step is to Pat everything evenly into the bottom of the pan all I have to do is use my fingertips if the mixture starts to get a little bit sticky it's because your butter is warm so I would just pop the whole thing into the fridge and let it chill for five to ten minutes but this is nice and workable I don't have any like big streaks of butter because what would happen is in the oven the butter would melt and it would create some texture that I don't want in the shortbread is this even I think so I want to get it into the fridge I mean it's still on the cool side but I really want that butter to firm up before I bake it that is going to sort of prevent the butter from like leaking out as it bakes just like five minutes in the freezer and then into the oven my oven is on 350. I'm going to grab the baking dish and before I throw it in just poke a couple holes and that will help some steam Escape so I don't get any areas that puff up so this has firmed up nicely just going to prick maybe in like eight to ten spots so now this is cold I'm going to put it into the oven which is on 350 and what's great about made in porcelain bakeware is it is thermal shock resistant so no concerns about breakage from cold to hot so this will go for about 25 to 30 and I just want it to be nice and golden brown across the surface while that is baking I can put together the ingredients for my curd which is the lemon filling I have a dozen eggs here which is a lot but I'm going to use three whole and nine yolks because the reason I use so many eggs and more than I would use for just like a regular curd that you know was for like spreading on scones or having as a filling I want all those eggs because the eggs are going to give it a firm set and I do want a firm set for lemon bars because I want to be able to like cleanly cut really nice squares again nine yolks and three whole eggs I do this I zone out and then I mix up The Oaks and the whites it's really annoying oh Felix egg whites will get saved who knows what will happen with these maybe some angel food cake or meringues but put that aside and now the last step is to grate some lemon zest and then juice them now I don't have enough lemons so we're really hoping that Harris gets back soon because I need a full cup and a half of lemon juice and I want two tablespoons of finely grated zest and typically I think for two tablespoons of lemon zest I probably will need maybe three of these lemons which are kind of like small small medium lemons oh I love that I have a two tablespoon measure it's like just the right amount so I am going to just set this aside and now I can go ahead and Juice my lemons basically this is a double recipe of the curd and dessert person with some a couple eggs added for that extra set so when I was getting my ingredients together kind of forgot to double it so let's see how juicy these lemons are because I need a cup and a half oh when I was a kid my mom every Sunday would make fresh orange juice with like a very similar juicer so this is actually very nostalgic for me [Applause] what if we have enough and I sent him out because we're already almost at a cup I'm going to strain it because I do want like that really perfectly smooth filling we're at a cup and a quarter and I have one small lemon left will she make it I'm going to press out all the pulp see what I can get we need conflict player no I need it to be no no we don't we don't no one needs that all right I think we're good I feel like this is enough because it hasn't drained yet yeah that's not according to my calculation here you're on it really oh my God it's perfect look at that okay call Harris and tell them you don't need him Kismet seriously no because I want him to bring home lemon still [Music] I'm gonna rotate it it's not quite done yet you could use a few more minutes that looks so good though as that is finishing I am going to start to assemble the curd I'm going to take my granulated sugar cup and a half of juice cup and a half of sugar I'm going to put it into my saucepan then I'm adding my lemon zest I want to massage the zest and the sugar together I do this step often when working with Citrus zest but it's especially important here because I'm going to strain the zest out so this step helps to encourage the zest to like release all this oil so it really infuses the curd with its flavor and then I go ahead and remove it now I'm going to add a pinch of salt and my eggs remember I have nine yolks and three whole eggs so the next step is to very thoroughly whisk together the whole eggs the yolks and the sugar until the mixer gets several Shades paler so it starts off this like very kind of deep Orange it's going to get very pale and it's going to also kind of get a lighter texture so this step is called blanching and it comes from the French word blush here which means like to whiten or to or to lighten so it's just going to get lighter lemon curd is a kind of custard but instead of dairy it's a citrus juice like lemon juice or lime juice I'm just doing it directly in the saucepan rather than in a bowl because it kind of streamlines the process now it's time to stream in my lemon juice like I want to give the yolk and sugar mixture a chance to kind of thin out slowly and that is to prevent any thicker parts from getting like trapped around the sides of the pan I want to make sure that it's totally Incorporated okay so now I'm ready to move over to the stove top the timing is great because I think that my crust is ready to come out the butter gets added after I cook the curd so I'm going to leave that right here now we're going to cook the curd pour it over the crust bake it again foreign so here's what I'm looking for it's light golden brown across the surface and hot and now I'm going to cook the curd starting over medium whisking constantly and what I'm looking for is basically the mixture is going to start to heat up and eventually those eggs will start to cook and thicken the curd my crust baked at 350 I'm going to lower the temperature to 325 and that is because I want The Filling to bake like a gentler lower temperature so that those eggs set really evenly so I'm going to decrease the temp while I'm also stirring constantly keeping an eye on this when you're cooking curd it's really great to work in a saucepan with like thick sides and a heavy bottom because that is going to promote equal and even cooking so what can happen if you're working in a flimsy pan is sometimes you'll get like some scorching and overcooking around the sides and then you end up like a lumpy curd so that's what you don't want if you don't have like a nice heavy duty pan I would recommend doing this in a double boiler so you basically have your saucepan but instead of cooking the curd in it directly you would have it sitting over the saucepan a little water in the bottom you know in a bowl it takes a little bit longer but you will get like a very nicely even a nice evenly cooked curd so I'm going to keep whisking at this stage I mean really at any stage you want to continuously stir you can stir with a wooden spoon or a spatula but for this quantity of curd I like using a whisk and make sure that you're getting around the sides and across the bottom just to avoid any overcooked bits of curd what happens is like the egg will coagulate and you'll get these little bits in it but we're going to strain it anyway I think this is done I pulled the saucepan off the heat because I don't want it to continue cooking I'm going to show you sort of what the texture is like so coating the back of a spoon it will form an opaque layer of curd on the spoon and when you run your finger through it you'll have these sharp lines clean spoon opaque curd that's how you know you're done so last step before I strain it onto the crust is to whisk in my butter one piece at a time the butter will look like it's loosening a texture of the curd but that's just because it's melting and when the bars are chilled the butter will actually help the filling be very firm and flexible The Next Step before I bake the bars is to strain the curd onto the crust it's kind of an optional step you could just leave the zest in there but it's helpful to be able to remove any like little bits of cooked egg if there were any and just you have a very very smooth filling [Music] really big lemon bars this is a lot of filling so see all the solids that I strained out that just means that I'm not getting them in my filling before I put it in the oven I want to smooth the surface so the filling is hot the crust is still pretty hot from having just been in the oven so that will help to speed up the bake time I think these will probably take like it's hard to say because it's quite a thick layer of filling maybe like 25 to 30 in the oven but I'm going to look for some bubbling around the edges and also when I shake the pan see how it's like pretty Wiggly it's just going to kind of wobble all as one piece and I should see some puffing it shouldn't take on much color though okay into the oven so after 20 minutes or like 22 minutes the lemon bars look done the surface is puffed it's like beautiful even color it's set when I shake the pan the whole thing gives like a slight wobble so I'm going to pull them out look at that beautiful surface as these cool The Filling will settle it will all create this like beautiful flat surface but before we cut it we want to chill these so lemon bars are best served cold when they're cold you get the cleanest best slices so it's really great if you can let this go overnight and it's getting a little bit late so we'll come back tomorrow morning and cut them and have lemon bars and of course finish them with powdered sugar which is a must for lemon bars here are my lemon bars these set up in the fridge overnight so it's the next morning and they look so great the surface settled nicely so I have this beautiful sort of flat clean finish I waited until they were fully cooled and then I covered them and threw them in the fridge so like when I say fully cooled you want to make sure that the bottom has no heat on it if there's even a little bit of warmth in there what can happen is you'll get some condensation on the surface of the plastic wrap and then that can like drip onto the surface and then when you put the powdered sugar on it doesn't look as good so if you're worried that it's still a little warm poke some holes in the plastic wrap and that will allow any steam or any like moisture that accumulates to escape but so this looks good so I'm going to uncover I mean I guess you could just chill them uncovered too not a big deal all right they feel nice and firm I'm going to unmold the whole thing so I'm just cutting on those sides without that are not lined now I'm going to lift out the whole slab and put it on my cutting board are you nervous about this part not so much because that shortbread base is pretty sturdy so this should pop out well that worked okay it came out very nicely I want to slide my spatula under the shortbread just to try to loosen that parchment paper and then I'll cut them I thought yesterday that it was like an a really kind of like crazy amount of filling but I think that it looks good the proportions I'm going to get a wet paper towel because I want to clean off the knife in between cuts so that I get a very defined sharp edge down the middle now I'm going to do the powdered sugar keeping that filling really tart I mean I took a little bit as I was cutting I tasted it it's very very tart not like unpleasant but it's sour enough that having that coating of confectioners sugar on top is going to be a nice touch and like very welcome so I have just like a small little sieve all flowing into the sink it's like you're powdering it I blotted the surface because again if there's any little beads of moisture on the surface you won't get full coverage with the powdered sugar so I'm going over any areas where it's absorbing a little bit which is very normal and you basically want to do this right before you serve because the longer this sits the more the sugar will hydrate and then you know and then you're not getting that solid coating let's taste so I like to actually separate them a little bit on the surface I'm really pleased with this set it has like you can tell it's a custard like there's a little bit of of a wobble to it but it's set it's firm you get really clean cut sides and I like the proportion of shortbread to filling I'm gonna taste the shortbread is nice because it's like as easy to sort of cut into but it's still crunchy and that I can like spoon into it with a fork and it's not really hard I feel like it looks like that super simple classic dessert of your childhood but it also is just actually like it's kind of just like a super classic lemon tart in bar form and so so good I would consider lemon bars for holiday baking it's so bright you can get lemons all year long but you can do all of your holiday baking in a variety of bakeware by Maiden it's all porcelain made in France thermal shock resistant can go from fridge or freezer to oven to table and it's so beautiful really high performance I want to thank made in for sponsoring this episode as always so go to maidencookware.com use the code below for 10 off your total order and happy holiday baking and thank you for watching like And subscribe foreign [Music]

Channel: Claire Saffitz x Dessert Person

Views: 668,463

Keywords: lemon bars, lemon bars recipe, how to make lemon bars, best lemon bars, easy lemon bars, dessert, lemon, recipe, lemon bar recipe, baking, lemon squares, recipe lemon bars, easy lemon bars recipe, lemon desserts, bars, dessert bar, easy recipes, lemon squares recipe, kitchen, dessert recipes, claire saffitz, claire, claire saffitz makes, claire saffitz lemon bars, dessert person, bon appetit, gourmet makes, pastry chef, new york times cooking, munchies, easiest lemon bars, lemons

Id: 9MzkLFv3yAs

Length: 21min 36sec (1296 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 08 2022