When Life Gives You Lemons, Make.... LEMON BARS

                          This is the year we finally got lemons on our lemon tree- lots of lemons

Small new lemon tree at top right

     Dean planted it in front of our house 5 years ago to replace a gnarled old tree that he despised.

For 3 years we had no lemons. Then last year one lone lemon appeared and was promptly stolen 

This year I can pick lemons to my hearts content and finally make the lemon bars I have been craving with my own lemons. My lemons are Eurekas, which I prefer to the sweeter Meyer lemons (a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange). I adore the puckery, citrus taste and  bright yellow hue of a Eureka. Above, two freshly picked lemons rest on a ceramic plate - a precious souvenir from a trip to Puglia

The lemon bar suggestion actually came from my brother Tom when we were talking bars right before Thanksgiving. This was long before we had any blossoms on our lemon tree. My brother lives not far from NYC in the small town of Allendale, NJ and we communicate sporadically by phone. His wife's daughter Chryssa had just baked a pan of pumpkin blondies with chocolate and pecans for him and he was raving about them. The recipe was featured in the New York Times Food Section and he insisted that I make them for Thanksgiving. He added that I should then try Lanis's lemon bars. I didn't get around to making the blondies for awhile, but when I did I was impressed. They are unbelievably scrumptious!

Pumpkin blondies with chocolate and pecans are a fall favorite

Lanis, my brother's wife, was a prolific gardener, a talented painter and an outstanding baker. She excelled at whatever she did. Tragically, she was felled by a fatal stroke while speaking at her Bergen County garden club a year and a half ago. She was a healthy, active 76 year old, so her sudden death was a shock to everyone. 

In the aftermath of her death, Lanis's daughters Chryssa and Mary put together an ingenious booklet of their mother's recipes. They included facsimiles of the spattered, yellowing recipe cards with Lanis's  notes and had it bound into a delightful package which they distributed to family and friends. I was lucky enough to receive a copy. Here is the touching preface to the book:

"Mom had many talents, one of which was her incredible knack for baking mouthwatering desserts, cakes, cookies and breakfast treats. Many of our memories center around these baked goods and will forever bring a  smile to our faces. We hope that you enjoy this compilation of favorite recipes which have been well loved and written all over by Mom... Love Chryssa and Mary"

A page with an an old recipe card handwritten by Lanis

The recipe in Lanis's  book seemed like a good place to try my hand at lemon bars. Unexpectedly, I had trouble right from the start. The crust ingredients didn't come together in the food processor so the mixture was too floury and not crumbly enough. It still wouldn't amalgamate  properly when I pressed it into the pan, plus the 9" pan was too big for the small amount of shortbread crumbs, creating a crust that was too fragile.  I proceeded nonetheless and baked it at 325 as noted. After 20 minutes the layer wasn't browned so I turned up the oven and baked it 10 minutes more. Meanwhile I made the excellent lemon topping, but when I poured it over the hot pastry, the result was a filling that wasn't substantial enough for my taste. An 8" pan would have done the trick. Unfortunately, on the whole, I was disappointed with the recipe.

So began my deep dive into the land of lemon bars. Searching for the perfect bar, I found as many variations as bakers who make them. The lemon topping variables consist of the amount of lemon juice to sugar, the number of eggs, the size of the pan and the (small) amount of flour or even cornstarch added. I discovered that the more recent the recipe, the more tart the filling.

The press-in crust, which makes up an important half of the bar, seems to always consist of flour, butter and sugar but differs in the method of mixing the ingredients. Lanis et al. cut cold butter into flour with a food processor, Ina Garten used a mixer, and David Lebovitz melted butter and mixed it in by hand. The pan could be metal or ceramic and varied in dimensions from 9 x 9  to  8 x 8 to 9 x 13. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that the baking temperature varies from 300 to 350 degrees.

                    Lemon bars with an under baked shortbread crust from Sally's Baking Addiction blog

                                                                s                                                                     

                                    Ina Garten's typically delicious Lemon Bars on the Food Network

                         An example of squares with a pale, thin crust, from The Preppy Kitchen Blog

           Finally I struck gold with a recipe by David Lebovitz, using a whole lemon ground in a food processor

David's bars sport a rich dark buttery crust, made by blending flour with melted butter, which is easily pressed into an 8 " pan, and baked at 350. His are the best lemon bars yet, avoiding both flabby, pale crusts and the thin, anemic filling that I dislike in other recipes. The whole ground lemon gives the filling a powerful zing. Here is his ingredient list, meant to be baked in an 8" pan. For full directions check out his blog post here: David's Whole Lemon Bars

Crust

• 1 cup (140g) flour
• 1/4 cup (50g) sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons (115g) melted unsalted butter
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Lemon Topping

• 1 lemon, organic or unsprayed
• 1 cup (200g) sugar
• 3 tablespoons (45ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 4 teaspoons corn starch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons (45g) melted unsalted butter
• Optional: powdered sugar, for serving

               

My rendition of whole lemon bars ready to be taken out of the oven

But whether they're thick or thin, tart or sweet, I echo what Pat Prager, the prize winning baker, said in J. Ryan Stradal's delightful novel Kitchens of the Great Midwest: "Who Doesn't like bars?"

Chocolate Chip Tahini Cookies à la David Lebovitz

This is the picture that got me. As a sucker for oozing chocolate chip cookies, I lighted up when I  made my occasional scan of David Lebovitz's blog and saw this outrageous photo. Then I noticed the tahini and I headed straight for the kitchen.

The dough came together quickly, but I adjusted the recipe to my personal taste and used half the chocolate chunks (Scharffen Berger bittersweet and semisweet pieces) and I added a cup of walnuts to the mixture. Next time I'll add even more. Also, because I'm not a fan of the salty-sweet trend, I omitted the salt sprinkles at the end. I like a classic sweet cookie, even though David's first word is "salted."

My cookies just out of the oven cooling on the tray

Boy, my cookies did not resemble the plump, oozing specimens in David's photo, but one bite told me that I had a winner. Like he says, these are some of the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever had. They were crisp when they were warm and they remained crisp to the end, three days later. Chocolate lovers like my husband will want more chocolate, but these are perfect for me.

Here is the recipe copied from the David Lebovitz blog:

Salted Chocolate Chip Tahini Cookies

18 to 25 cookies

Adapted from Modern Israeli Cooking: 100 New Recipes for Traditional Classics by Danielle Oron. I used chopped chocolate, rather than chocolate chips, for these cookies since I wanted large chunks of oozing chocolate rather than little bits of chocolate here and there. (But feel free to use chips if you’d like.) Normally when I chop chocolate for cookies, I add any small bits and pieces on the cutting board along with the bigger chunks. But for these, I wanted distinct, more assertive pieces of chocolate, so I sorted through and just used large chunks, saving the smaller bits for another baking project. I baked these cookies in a larger size, then tried them in smaller portions, and give baking times for each. Whichever size you bake them in, since everyone’s oven is different, it’s important to use visual clues rather than rely on precise minutes and numbers to tell when they’re done. Keep an eye on them during the final minutes of baking; the cookies are done when quite pale in the center and browned around the edges.

8 tablespoons (115g, 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup (120ml) tahini, well stirred

1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar

1/2 cup (90g) packed light brown sugar

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 large egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (150g) flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

2 cups (280g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chunks, or chocolate chips

flaky sea salt, such as Maldon or fleur de sel

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter, tahini, granulated sugar and brown sugar on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes, until fluffy. (The dough can also be made in a large mixing bowl, stirred with a spatula.)

2. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides. Add the egg, the yolk, and vanilla, and continue to mix for another minute, stopping the mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl during mixing, to make sure the eggs are getting incorporated.

3. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and kosher or sea salt. With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients until just combined, then add the chocolate chips. Do not overmix. Cover the dough and refrigerate overnight.

4. Preheat the oven to 325ºF (180ºC). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

5. Form the cookies into rounds using an ice cream scoop, or your hands. For small cookies make each 1 1/2-inch (3,5cm), for larger cookies, make them 2-inches (5cm) round. Place them evenly spaced on the baking sheets, 3-inches (8cm) apart). Bake one sheet at a time, so you can keep an eye on them, in the middle rack of the oven.

6. Bake the cookies, turning the baking sheet in the oven midway during baking, until the cookies are golden brown around the edges but still pale in the center. For small cookies, about 12 minutes, for larger cookies, about 14 to 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, sprinkle cookies with a bit of flaky sea salt, and let the cookies cool on the baking sheet. Bake the remaining cookies the same way.Storage: These cookies will keep for two or three days at room temperature, but are definitely better the same day they’re baked. The unbaked dough can be refrigerated for up to one week, and frozen for up to two months.

My second try

My first cookies evaporated so fast that I had to make another batch. I adjusted this recipe to look more like David's. I made the cookies larger and thicker, I used more chocolate chunks and I salted the tops with sea salt to finish. Even better this time! At least some oozing is evident.

I met David in 1998 while he was teaching a cooking class at Sur La Table in Berkeley, where I worked. He was living in San Francisco then, just before moving to Paris. He arrived early and made a batch of extraordinary brownies for the staff and cooking class volunteers. I was bowled over by the rich, intense fudginess of his creation and the next day I asked Sandy Sachs, the cooking class coordinator, for David's recipe. To my surprise, the copy she handed to me was a Scharffen Berger hand out. The treat he had made were the chocolate brownies developed by Robert Steinberg for Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker. The staff knew Robert because he poked around Sur La Table while he was developing the recipes for his fledgling chocolate company. David also became friendly with Robert and John Scharffenbeger when they were launching the company. In Robert's 2008 obituary, David wrote: "I was really fortunate to know Robert and  had the pleasure of watching him make chocolate, swooning over a luscious spoonful of the sticky, half-crushed cocoa beans...learning how to be a more perceptive and thoughtful taster..."

So what started out as "classic chocolate brownies" on a faded mail order leaflet, became "Robert's Fudgy Brownies." The recipe below was printed in a small booklet enclosed in Scharffen Berger's
bittersweet baking bar boxes. The company no longer includes these recipes, so I'm glad I kept the leaflets from the bittersweet and semisweet baking bar packages.