A series of fortunate events...

One of my dearest friends invited me over to her place for dinner. She's a fantastic cook so I was very excited to take a night off from cooking. I was in charge of dessert which was probably not the best idea. I may have mentioned this before...I'm a terrible baker! I found out that her boyfriend was a lover of all things lemon so that narrowed things down tremendously.

I decided to go with lemon bars. Seemed easy enough and there was little room for errors. I made half the recipe and used an 8 inch square baking pan. The cooking time for the crust I increased by a couple of minutes. I am also a fan of lemony goodness so I kept the amount of zest at 1 tablespoon. Writing this, I am starting to see why I suck at baking. With cooking, you can add a dash of this and substitute with that. Baking is very precise. I'm pretty sure it's my alterations that get me into trouble.

So the lemon bars turned out very thin but quite delicious. They weren't going to win any beauty contests but good enough to take over to the dinner party. And for my baking skills, that's a step forward.

Double Lemon Bars

Bon Appétit  | July 1991

by Lana Sills: North Hollywood, California

yield: Makes 24

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, cut into pieces, room temperature
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
• Powdered sugar

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°F. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour and 1/2 cup powdered sugar in large bowl.

Add butter and cut in until mixture resembles coarse meal.

Press mixture into bottom of 9x13x2-inch baking dish. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven. Maintain oven temperature.

Beat eggs, 1 1/2 cups sugar, lemon juice, 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon flour and lemon peel in medium bowl to blend. Pour into crust. Bake until mixture is set, about 20 minutes. Cool.
Cut into 24 bars. Sift powdered sugar over top before serving.