Introduction: Amazing Easy Lemon Bars

About: Hello and Welcome to In the Kitchen With Matt. I am your host Matt Taylor. My goal for the show is to teach you how to cook really good food at home for cheap. Eating out everyday can get expensive, but it doe…

In this instructable I will show you how to make Lemon Bars or Lemon Squares. This recipe for lemon bars is easy to make, just a handful of ingredients, along with some simple steps, if I can do it, you can do it! Let's get baking!

If you have any questions, comments, or requests, put them down below and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Follow the easy steps or watch the video tutorial or do both!

Step 1: Ingredients

You can print the recipe here if you want.

Ingredients:

Base:

  • 2 cups of all purpose flour
  • 1 cup of softened unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup of white granulated sugar

Lemon Top:

  • Juice from 2 medium lemons (add a third for extra lemon flavor)
  • 4 eggs
  • 1/4 cup of flour
  • 2 cups of sugar
  • Zest from 1 lemon (roughly 1 tsp.)
  • Powdered sugar for dusting

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Step 2: Cream Butter and Sugar

First let's preheat our oven to 350 Degrees F. Next let's add our softened butter and 1/2 cup of sugar and cream them together with a mixer.

Step 3: Scrape, Add, Mix

Now let's scrape the sides with a spatula, then add half of our flour and mix that in really well, then add the rest of our flour and mix that in. After that we scrape the sides, one final mix. When you are done you will have large crumbles of buttery, sugary, flour, yummy.

Step 4: Pour, Pat, Roll, Bake

Now we pour the mixture into an aluminum foil or parchment paper lined 13x9 pan. Then push down the mixture with your hands and fingers until it spreads out. Use a pastry roller if you like to get it nice and even. Once you have it all pressed down, we bake it in the oven for 15 to 25 minutes, just until it is lightly brownish on the top. Don't over bake it, the cookie will get super crumbly.

Step 5: Cool It Down

Now we let the cookie base cool for 5 to 10 minutes while we prepare the lemon topping

Step 6: Add Remaining Ingredients

To make the lemon topping we add our eggs and beat those with a whisk, then our sugar, our lemon juice, flour, lemon zest (optional) and mix it all together with our whisk. A micro plane works great for getting lemon zest.

Step 7: Pour, Bake, Cool

Now we pour it on top of our cookie base and bake it in the oven at 350 degrees F. for 20 minutes. After we take it out of the oven the top will look like the picture. Now we need to let it cool and set up completely. 2 to 3 hours works nicely.

Step 8: Unwrap, Cut, Powder, Serve

Now we unwrap the foil from the edges of the huge lemon bar. Then take a knife and cut it into squares. If the knife sticks too much, run hot water over the knife, before each cut. Nice little trick. Then take some powdered sugar and a little strainer or sifter and put some powdered sugar on those lemon bars!

Step 9: Video Tutorial

Now watch those steps in action!