How to Make the Lemoniest Lemon Bars

[Music] i know i'm supposed to go gaga over chocolate desserts but i love anything lemon lemon ice lemon pie jack lemon even those lemon candies you know they kind of rip up the top of your mouth as you eat them but lemon bars not so much they always look like they're going to be lemony they're yellow but they never taste like lemon but luckily lawn is here and she's going to put the lemon back in the lemon bar i sure am so when i was developing this recipe the lemon lovers like yourself made me a little crazy we can't have enough well hopefully i've satisfied your desire for lemon all right before we can get to the filling though let's talk about the crust okay instead of the usual shortbread style crust which was a little too crumbly we're gonna go with something slightly different okay it starts with a cup of flour i've got all-purpose flour here a quarter cup of granulated sugar and a half a teaspoon of table salt all right i'm just going to whisk that together i'm using granulated sugar here instead of confectioner's sugar which you see in a lot of recipes right the coarser sugar is going to give our crust a tiny bit of crunch last up is our butter i've got eight tablespoons of melted unsalted butter and i'm just gonna stir that in as you can see it's a really pliable almost batter like dough yeah we're gonna be making our lemon bars in an eight by eight and i've lined this pan with two foil strips that's going to make cleaning up and getting the bars out of the pan a lot easier right now i'm just going to press everything into place i want to make sure that the bottom layer is very very even i want to make sure every bite has just the right amount of crust and filling now i'm just going to pop this into a 350 degree oven got the rack set in the middle and it's going to bake until it's dark golden brown 19 to 24 minutes okay so our crust has come out of the oven it's a nice dark golden brown and we don't actually have to let this cool all the way we can just keep going filling in so for that filling i've got two thirds of a cup of lemon juice and two teaspoons of lemon zest and those ratios aren't actually radically different from what other recipes use the secret ingredient it turns out was cream of tartar it's a dry acid so you don't have to bind it with any extra binders okay so i've got two teaspoons of cream of tartar and cream of tartar is actually tartaric acid and what it does is it sort of tricks the lemon lovers into thinking there's more lemon in there than there actually is because it provides more puckery flavor absolutely all right so i'm going to add a cup of granulated sugar i have two tablespoons of all-purpose flour and a quarter teaspoon of salt just gonna whisk that all together next up i have three large eggs and three egg yolks and these provide most of the binding power the flour is just kind of a little extra help okay and you absolutely do have to separate eggs for this if you use too many egg whites it ends up tasting a little bit sulphurous and eggy distracting we're not looking for a lemon omelet it's nice and smooth just going to add that lemon juice that was two-thirds of a cup okay and the lemon zest just going to whisk that all together now i'm not going to just pour this into that crust this filling would take probably 40 minutes to bake through and over that time the edges are going to overcook while we're waiting for the sender to set right so what we're going to do is we're going to jump start this filling got a medium saucepan here cook this at medium low heat until it reaches 160 degrees this is going to take five to eight minutes stirring constantly to prevent the bottom from curdling okay looks good i'm looking for 160 degrees there you go perfect i'm gonna move this off heat so it doesn't keep cooking okay and i'm going to add four tablespoons of unsalted butter yes now it's a card just gonna stir until all of that butter is melted the butter's gonna help cool this as well and it's gonna just round out the flavors a little bit this looks great that is beautiful now we are going to strain this mixture and that's to make sure that if there are any curdled bits we catch them and that lemon zest that's in there we're done with it it's given up everything it's going to give to our lemon bars so let's get rid of it so right into our 8x8 doesn't that look beautiful that is like sunshine in a pan i'm just going to tilt this pan to smooth it out there's no need to try to even it out with a spatula okay and i'm just going to pop it back into that 350 degree oven just until it sets up we'll jiggle the pan to make sure it's done that'll take eight to 12 minutes so it's been about 10 minutes let's take a look all right how's it looking to you it looks great the edges are just starting to puff just a tiny bit we're getting this out of here now we have to exercise our patients this has to cool for that filling to set and it's going to take about an hour and a half yes all right i hope they're cold enough they certainly are you ready i sure am so that sling we made earlier makes taking these out so easy i'm going to cut these into 12 bars and i'm going to wipe my knife clean in between slices and i love that there's some resistance in that crust too i can tell it's going to be nice and crunchy right beautiful color look at that even crust right there gorgeous all right first bite that is gorgeous that lemon flavor just lingers and lingers and lingers it does but it's not too tart and that crust just comes through you get the bits of crunch it's kind of buttery you get this almost toasty flavor underneath and the texture of the curd it's like butter these are packed with lemon thank you so much lon well if you want to make these lemon packed lemon bars it starts with stirring melted butter into the flour mixture press into a pan and bake to create a tender and crunchy crust cook lemon juice zest and a little cream of tartar our secret ingredient along with eggs on the stovetop or over that crust and then finish in the oven cool slice and devour as fast as possible so from our test kitchen to your kitchen a true lemon lover's delight believe me the best lemon bars i'm speechless thanks for watching america's test kitchen what'd you think well leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can just say hello you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our channel see you later i'll see you later

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 238,690

Keywords: lemon bars, lemon curd, baking, baking recipes, cooks illustrated, americas test kitchen

Id: fUinvtDigVk

Length: 6min 55sec (415 seconds)

Published: Mon May 04 2020