Lemon bars for Mum

Happy birthday Mum...

Mums birthday was on September 2nd.She loves lemon tart, but unfortunately I don't have a tart baking pan. I wasn't quite game enough to make a lemon tart without the pan, as I really didn't want to fail miserably. It was Mum's birthday after all!

These lemon bars were baked in a square cake pan and essentially tastes the same as a lemon tart. This recipe calls for a lot of lemon juice - the result is a nice, strong lemon flavour. The base is nice and thick and isn't made soggy by the filling.


Lemon bars (Recipe from Baking Bites)


Ingredients:
Base
1 1/2 cups plain flour
Pinch of salt
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature


Filling
4 eggs
1 1/3 cup sugar
1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, strained

Method:
Preheat the oven to 176 degrees C. Grease and line a 20 x 20 cm cake pan. I find it easy to use baking paper with a bit of overhang (have the baking paper extend up a few cm over the cake pan to make it easy to remove the bar without breaking after baking).
For the base, place the flour, salt and sugar in a large bowl and whisk to combine. Add the butter and use an electric beater on low to mix until it resembles sandy crumbs. I found it easier to rub the butter a little into the flour with my fingers to achieve this after using the beater for a few minutes, but maybe that was me being a little impatient!
Tip the mixture into the prepared pan. Using your fingers press the mixture evenly into the base of the pan, extending to the edges and corners.
Pop in the oven and bake for 16-20 minutes, until golden brown at the edges. Watch closely after 15 minutes, but mine took closer to 20.
While the base is baking, whisk together the filling ingredients until incorporated. You want to pour the mixture onto the base while still warn from the oven, so have it ready!
Take the base from oven and pour filling in carefully before popping back in the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until the filling is set and doesn't wobble. 
Note - I used a silicon cake pan so I made sure I had it on an oven tray before pouring the filling in - otherwise it would have been very hard to get into the oven!

While the bars taste good on the day of eating, if you leave them overnight (or even a few days) in the fridge, the lemon flavour develops and the bars get better.