Monday, April 25, 2011

Easter & Lemon Bars

We always have so much fun at Easter with our family.  The kids look forward to our Easter plans every year.  On one side of the family we stay at a hotel with an indoor water park so the kids can swim with their cousins, we eat pizza and have an Easter egg hunt in our hotel rooms.  On the other side we eat Easter dinner, have an outdoor Easter egg hunt, the kids get to hit a Mexican pinata and we play a really fun game called Flickin Chickin.  Basically you stand a good distance away from a Styrofoam disk and you throw rubber chickens at the disk to see how long it takes you to hit it.  Most of us throw the rubber chickens one at a time but my sister-in-law throws them all at once.  Sometimes I wonder what the neighbors would think if they saw all of us throwing rubber chickens at the ground!

On the way to school Thursday I asked all of my kids what they thought the meaning of Easter was.  My 9 year old son said ,"I think it's the celebration of Jesus coming back to life."  My 11 year old daughter said, "That's what I was going to say." and my 3 year old son said, "I think it's about a bunny laying Easter eggs for me to hunt."  I told him the real meaning of Easter, similar to what his siblings said and I asked him again. "Now what do you think the meaning of Easter is?" and his reply, "Um I still think it's about an Easter bunny laying eggs for me to hunt."  Well all a parent can do is try but our children will think what they want to think!

For Easter last year my mom asked be to bring a dessert.  I decided to try this delicious lemon tart I had gotten out of a French cookbook.  I prepared everything so carefully and it turned out perfect.  I put it in a cake carrier and away we went.  After almost two hours in the car we got to my parents house and my tart had fallen apart!  I was disappointed but since it didn't look pretty didn't mean it wasn't going to taste good and boy did it taste good.  So this year she asked me to make a dessert again and I chose lemon bars this time.  The lemon bars turned out delicious and lemony.  They have a melt in your mouth crust and a burst of lemon in the filling.  The picture of the bars and recipe is below.  I will admit I may have gone overboard on my 'sprinkling' of powdered sugar!  Looking at the picture you would've thought the recipe read..pile each bar with confectioner's sugar. They are so delicious!


Luscious Lemon Bars

For crust:
1 cup flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1 stick butter, melted but not hot

For filling:
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 Tbs. all purpose flour
6 Tbs juice from 2 lemons
2 tsps finely grated lemon zest

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Spray 8 x 8 baking dish well with cooking spray. 
Mix flour, salt, and confectioner's sugar in a bowl, stir in butter to form dough.  Press dough into greased pan and bake until pale golden, about 20 minutes.
While pastry bakes whisk eggs, sugar, flour, lemon juice and zest in a bowl.
Remove pan from oven and add lemon mixture, continue to bake for about 20 minutes longer.  Let cool and then sprinkle with confectioner's sugar if you like.  Enjoy!

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