Lemon Lime Bars

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Tart, sweet, amazing lemon lime bars with a crisp shortbread crust – and easy to make, perfect dessert that everyone will love!

Lemon Lime Bars - Bake.Eat.Repeat. (simple, family friendly recipes) (1)

Lemon lime bars. The perfect treat. Especially in the spring when lemon needs to go into all the things. Clearly. Lemon coconut muffins, lemon raspberry sweet rolls, and now lemon lime bars. I did say that I can’t get enough!

These tart, sweet bar cookies are one of my favourite treats, but I had actually never made them before. I always enjoy them when I have them at parties and potlucks and things, but had never made them myself. I will definitely be making them again! And adding lime. Lemon and lime are just amazing together. You could totally just use lemon if you want though and make a regular lemon bar. They would be fantastic either way.

And today, these lemon lime bars are in honour of three wonderfulladies that I have come to know through blogging. Some of my blogging friends and Iare throwing a virtual baby shower for all three of them today to celebrate their new (and coming soon!) little bundles of joy! It’s unfortunate we’re all living in many different places and can’t get together to throw a real lifebaby shower for these three ladies (and cuddle the cute babies while we’re at it!), but since we can’t, we’re doing the next best thing.

Lemon Lime Bars - Bake.Eat.Repeat. (simple, family friendly recipes) (2)

So congratulations to Natalie (Tastes Lovely), Jessica (Flying on Jess Fuel) and Isadora (She Likes Food)! I’m so happy for all three of you as you welcome your new little ones into your families!

So, since it’s a baby shower, I made the bar cookie that I always think of when it comes to showers. I think maybe they’ve just been at most of the showers I’ve attended, so it seemed like the right choice. Cut them in bigger bars, or if it’s a party and you have lots of food, little bites like I did here. Either way, they’re delicious.

Make sure to check out all the other food for the party! And if you happen to be planning a real life baby shower – we’ve got you covered. Lots of links below the recipe for both sweet and savoury little bites!

Yield: 24 small bars

Ingredients

For the crust:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup powdered sugar, plus more for dusting
1/4 cup cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 12 pieces

For the filling:

4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
3 lemons, juice and 2 teaspoons finely grated zest
3 limes, juice and 1 teaspoon finely grated zest
1/3 cup heavy cream (or whole milk)
1/8 teaspoon salt

Instructions

Make the crust first. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, and line a 9x13 inch pan with tin foil, leaving an overhang so you can lift the bars out with it.
Spray the foil with non-stick cooking spray.
In a food processor, mix together the flour, powdered sugar, cornstarch and salt for the crust, pulsing a couple times to combine everything.
Add the pieces of butter and pulse until the mixture is pale yellow and looks like coarse meal. (If you don’t have a food processor, grate the cold butter into the flour mixture and rub it into the flour with your fingers.)
Press this mixture into the prepared pan, pressing it firmly with your fingers into an even 1/4 inch layer, and up the sides of the pan about 1/2 inch.
Refrigerate for 30 minutes and then bake for 20-25 minutes or until lightly browned.
While the crust is chilling and baking, make the filling.
In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar and flour together.
Stir in the lemon and lime juice (2/3 cup juice total) and zest, the heavy cream (or milk) and the salt.
When the crust is finished, remove it from the oven and whisk the filling to recombine it.
Pour it into the warm crust.
Reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees F and bake the bars for 25-30 minutes, or until the filling feels firm to the touch.
Cool the pan on a wire rack at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before lifting out the bars and slicing them.
Dust the bars with powdered sugar to serve.
The bars keep well in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3-5 days, but the cookie crust will soften a bit.

Notes

I used Meyer lemons for this recipe, but regular lemons would be fine too. Also, for the lemon and lime juice, you should have 2/3 cup juice, total. That was 3 lemons and 3 limes for me, but that could be a bit different depending on how juicy your fruit is, so measure the juice before adding it in.

Source: Adapted from Cook's Illustrated Baking Book.