This week’s cooking projects from my collection of recipes included making bran muffins for my mom, more blondies, more chocolate buttercrunch, and the subject of this post, lemon squares. I started making them to have another dessert to add to my collection of recipes, and so I found a recipe on the Martha Stewart website, which I then converted to my format and whose measures I adjusted down by half. However, you may notice that in this recipe, the full amounts of the original recipe are also listed, since you may wish to make enough of these squares for a party; unfortunately, since the recipe does not freeze too well, I found that the full recipe was big enough that my mom and I started to get tired of them after eating them every day for a week!
UPDATE 20210608: This post is based on my “old” lemon squares recipe, which I have updated, replacing the base with appropriately adjusted amounts of my aunt’s shortbread cookie recipe.
There are two parts to these lemon squares: A shortbread base, and a lemon curd topping.
The base is made first:
First, in order to bring the margarine to room temperature, I took out margarine:
… then margarine was measured out:
… and the margarine was put aside for a bit to warm up to room temperature.
In the meantime, I took out some parchment paper and an 8″ x 8″ baking pan …
… and the baking pan was lined with parchment paper:
When the margarine had warmed up to room temperature, I placed it in a mixing bowl:
Flour was taken out …
… then the flour was measured out …
… and the flour was poured into the mixing bowl with the margarine:
Icing sugar was taken out …
… measured out …
… and poured into the mixing bowl
Salt was taken out and measured …
… and added to the mixing bowl with the icing sugar, flour, and margarine:
A fork was used …
… to break up the margarine into pieces about the size of peas, mixing the icing sugar, flour, and margarine together in the process:
The mixed ingredients were transferred to the lined baking pan:
The mixed ingredients were pressed down by hand:
A countertop convection oven was preheated to 350F:
… into which the baking pan was placed …
… and a timer was set to 16 minutes (obviously, the photo was taken about 20 seconds later!)
Making the topping:
Eggs were taken out …
… two eggs were chosen ..
… which were then cracked into a mixing bowl …
Ooops, I forgot to lightly beat the eggs.
Milk was taken out:
Milk was measured out:
The milk was poured into the mixing bowl with the eggs:
A bit of flour was measured out and added to the mixing bowl with the milk and eggs:
Sugar was taken out:
Sugar was measured out:
The sugar was poured into the mixing bowl with the flour, milk, and eggs:
Salt was measured out:
… and the salt was added to the mixing bowl with the sugar, flour, milk, and eggs:
A fork was taken out …
… to mix the salt, sugar, flour, milk, and eggs:
Lemon juice was taken out:
Lemon juice was measured out:
The lemon juice was poured into the mixing bowl:
… and the ingredients were mixed together with a fork:
By this time, the base had finished baking, and was taken out of the countertop convection oven:
The topping was poured over the still hot base:
The temperature of the countertop convection oven was reduced to 325F:
The baking pan was placed again in the countertop convection oven:
… and a timer was set to 20 minutes (obviously, the photo was taken about 11 seconds later!)
A cooling rack was taken out for when the cooking was done:
When the baking was completed, the baking pan was taken out of the oven, and placed on the cooling rack:
After a bit of cooling, the lemon squares were lifted out of the baking pan, and placed back on the cooling rack:
I started slicing the whole dessert in half:
… and I sliced the whole dessert into 16 pieces:
Icing sugar was sprinkled on the top:
… and of course served!
Mom liked them; she also suggested that I try using my aunt’s shortbread recipe for the base, which I will try the next time I make lemon squares.