Strawberry Lemon Squares

I've had my eye on this recipe for too long. About a year ago, I received the link to Smitten Kitchen's recipe for Pink Lemonade Bars from a friend who has the envious knack of finding, from the unimaginable number of published food blogs, precisely the sort of recipe that strikes a chord in one's epicurean soul. I could live off the recipes she sends—from beet ravioli to pumpkin cinnamon rolls. But as happens too often, when one maintains a list of must-make-recipes, I tagged this recipe and put it aside. So it is with a great sense of completion that, ten months later, I set aside a now-creased copy of the recipe and pulled the bars from the oven.

With a couple tweaks and substitutions, this recipe delivered. The crust is a simple dough—so simple that I mixed it up right in the pan. I fulfilled the pink lemonade theme, but used strawberries in place of raspberries. The strawberry puree cuts the tart citrus and adds a blushing pink color that is bespeckled with flecks of the lemon mixture. With lemon zest in the crust and lemon juice in the top layer, the pleasant zing runs through the entire bar. The bars slice up easily and welcomed the sprinkling of confectioner's sugar, an added color and dimension of sweetness. Hopefully you won't wait as long as I did to give them a go.

   

This recipe does take some time to prepare. The crust is incredibly easy, but you'll need to puree or smash the strawberries to avoid lumps in the batter. I took the long-and-lazy route: after washing one too many dishes (I have an unfortunately low tolerance for washing dishes), I decided I'd prefer to mash the strawberries with a fork, in the face of fishing out tendrils of strawberry from a blender's crooked corners. I macerated the berries in some sugar to soften them and after a few minutes, took a fork to them. The crushed berries went into a colander, with a bowl to catch the strained syrup. I got the necessary amount of syrup, but the process was much more time consuming than tossing the berries into a blender. The rest of the batter, however, won't take long.

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen's Pink Lemonade Bars
Strawberry Lemon Squares
Crust Ingredients:
1/4 cup granulated sugar
grated zest of 1 medium lemon
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cubed
1 cup unbleached, all-purpose flour

For the strawberry-lemon layer:
1 1/2 cups whole strawberries
2 eggs
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice (from about 2 lemons)
1/3 cup unbleached, all-purpose flour
Powdered sugar for dusting

Directions:
--Grease and flour an 8x8x2-inch baking pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

--To make crust, add sugar, zest, salt, and flour straight to the baking pan and mix to combine. Add the chunks of butter and mix with a fork until all ingredients are combined and dough begins to form and stick to itself. Using fingers, press dough down onto bottom of pan, spreading the dough to the pan's sides in an even layer. Bake for 15 minutes or until crust is lightly browned.

--Add strawberries to a blender and puree until liquified.* Pour into a strainer and collect the liquid that falls through in a bowl. You'll need 3 TBSP strained strawberry liquid.

--Mix together eggs, sugar, and lemon juice in a medium bowl. Add 3 TBSP of the strawberry liquid and flour, and stir to combine. Pour over crust, put the pan in the oven, and bake until the center is just barely jiggly, 20-25 minutes. Cool completely. Score 20 bars, and remove individually from pan. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

*Alternately,  add 1 TBSP of sugar to strawberries and let sit for 15 minutes. Use a fork to mash berries to a pulp and then add to strainer.