Baking escape: When life gives you lockdown, make lemon bars

Baking is a great way to releive stress during lockdown and these lemon bars are both easy and delightful. Photo / NZH

Something about lockdown gives me the urge to bake. Maybe it is the proximity to the kitchen, but more likely it is a form of stress relief. If you are lucky enough to have access to lemons (and eggs and flour) then these lockdown lemon bars have to happen. They are easy, use very few ingredients and taste incredible. The combination of baking therapy and the sweet deliciousness these bars impart is exactly what you need to get you through these uncertain times.

You will need

For the base:
250g butter, softened
½ cup caster sugar
2 cups plain flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the lemon topping:
½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (approx 2 lemons)
Grated zest of 1 lemon
¼ cup plain flour
4 eggs
1½ cups caster sugar

If you are feeling fancy you can dust the bars with a little icing sugar. Photo / NZH

Directions

Pre-heat the oven to 175C. Line a standard rectangular slice pan with baking paper. Tip: A great tip to get your baking paper to stay down is to scrunch it into a ball, before flattening it out into the pan. I also like to add generous overhang of baking paper on either side of the pan as it makes it much easier to lift out your slice.

Soften the butter by cutting it into cubes and microwaving on a very low heat for about 90 seconds. You can also pop the diced butter in the sun for a while.

Combine flour, sugar, vanilla, salt and butter in a large bowl.

Use your hands to massage the butter into the dry ingredients until a nice dough forms, you could also use a food processor for this step.

Press dough into lined pan and place in pre-heated oven for 18-22 minutes, checking often. You want it to be just golden brown.

While your base is doing its thing in the oven, prepare your lemon topping. Combine all topping ingredients and mix thoroughly with a whisk until everything is well combined.

Pour topping mixture over browned shortbread base, return to the oven for a further 20 minutes. The topping will still be a little wobbly, but it will firm up as it cools.

Remove slice from oven, allow to cool for 15 minutes, then lift out of pan and allow to cool completely before cutting into small bars.