hey there my name is sheldo welcome to my kitchen today we are making lemon bars they're so simple just a filling in a crust but they truly let the lemon shine through and sing however some lemon bars can be so disappointing they can look perfect yellow beautiful yet when you go to take a bite there's no lemon flavor maybe just me but I kind of like my lemon bars to taste like lemon I'm looking for bright tart zesty Citrus flavor smooth luscious filling paired with a crust that is crunchy never socky that is exactly what I set out to create with this recipe just six ingredients plus two optional extras that help amp up the color and the flavor but we can get more into that later everything comes together in just one pan no extra mixing bowl required The Filling is a modified lemon curd because let's be real does anything taste more like lemons than lemon curb the crust starts with brown butter and uses a slightly unconventional technique that yields a texture that is crisp and almost flaky and has such deep buttery flavor perfect pairing to the bright filling truly these are the ultimate lemon bars and I really hope that you give the recipe a [Music] try start off by preheating your oven to 350 fit with the rack in the very center of the oven then we'll line a 9in square baking pan it can either be glass or metal like this one snip these Corners two parallel these two parallel as well and just like that set this aside next we're going to work on the crust for this recipe we'll use one cup of butter which is either two sticks or half of a pound part of it will be for the crust and part of it will be for the filling I've always find it really hard to measure butter in terms of tablespoons by volume so really the best way to do it is by weight but because we're not doing anything crazy it's not French paste it doesn't have to be super precise so I'll show you how to eyeball the amounts that we need so I've already gone ahead and cut this pound of butter in half we're going to use just 1/2 1 cup is 16 tbsp we're going to use 10 tbspoon of the butter in the crust which leaves 6 tbspoon for the filling cut it in half so that's eight tablespoons each we'll Reserve eight for the crust take two more tablespoons out of this just cut it into half then quarters 8 / 4 is 2 8 + 2 is 10 we're left with 6 tablespoons here for the filling cut these into smaller poats this is the butter that will go into the filling set it aside don't forget about it not only does the butter add richness and flavor to the Cur because butter is solid at room temperature once the filling cools down it'll actually help solidify the filling so pretty important don't forget the 10 tablespoons that will be going into the crust also cut them into smaller pieces it'll just help the butter melt a little easier in our pan because we are going to Brown this butter we can verify how we did 10 tbsp of butter should be 100 40 G oh yeah 138 it's pretty spot-on before we start Browning the butter measure out and have ready all of the rest of the ingredients for the crust 175 G or 1 and 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour 50 g or a/4 cup of sugar 5 G or 1 and 1/2 taspo of kosher salt finer sea salt or table salt that'll be 3/4 taspo still weighing 5 G though and last but not least 1 tbsp or 15 mL of coal water here's my oh my gosh it's heavy medium Heat this isn't very much butter so it will Brown quickly I've shown how to make brown butter quite a few times on this channel already if given the opportunity to I will Brown the butter it just makes things taste so good during the Browning process first evaporating off some of the water that exists in butter once that water is evaporated the butter will rise in temperature the sugars and the proteins left in the butter those go through the myard process and also some caramelization and that just creates yummy delicious toffee caramelly flavors just makes for an all round better tastier dessert you don't want to do it over too high of a heat we don't want to burn the butter before it Browns properly stir the butter constantly so that nothing sticks to the bottom and burns at first while the water is evaporating off the butter will make sounds once the noise stops that means all of the water is gone start watching really carefully because things do happen really fast from that point I don't know if you can see but these particles have settled out of the butter and it's these particles that will Brown and toast just keep stirring feel like my heat is a little high it's a patient process you don't want to rush it the sounds are kind of dying down now I'm beginning to smell the brown butter so that means we are really close look at all the brown bits at the bottom we're looking for uh a shade lighter than the color of powdered instant coffee so right here that's still kind of medium brown but we are getting close so actually right now I'm going to turn the temperature off and let the remaining heat carry us to the color that we're looking for all right that is exactly the brownness that we want straight into the but we'll add our salt and our sugar give it a stir so it's all mixed in that'll cool down the butter just a little bit go in with our flour give it a stir so the hot butter is actually scalding the flour denaturing some of that gluten which gives the flour structure and that will help us make a CR that isn't tough but instead super crisp once the flour is properly mixed in go in with our last ingredient which is a tablespoon of cold water this will help cool down the mixture a little bit but also if we don't add the water this dough is too crumbly and it's kind of hard to work with I don't know if I've seen a crust made exactly this way before it really makes for such a nice light crisp crust look at those beautiful specks from the brown butter isn't that so pretty transfer our crust mixture into our prepared lined pan with this pan just give it a wipe with some paper towel no need to wash it we will use the same pan to make the lemon curd filling at this point the filling will still be kind of hot so use your spatula toy it up and get it as even as we can before we go in and start smooshing it's kind of almost like a Sandy Play-Doh texture all we have to do is press and Pat we can switch to our hands if this is still a bit hot you can also use the bottom of a small dry measuring cup wonderful doesn't have to be perfect then grab a fork poke some holes this will prevent the crust from bubbling up in the oven perfect then crust goes into the oven we're looking for it to get golden all over anywhere from 20 to 25 minutes depending on your oven tidy up just a little bit look what happened to my scale I left it sitting on top of the stove by the vent of the oven so the back completely melted don't forget to set a timer for the crust I'm going to set a timer for 18 just so we can check on it a little early and gauge how much longer it needs to bake while the crust is cooking we can make our filling lemon bar filling needs to be cooked Twice first on the stove top to thicken it then the thickened filling is poured onto the crust the whole thing goes back into the oven and it bakes until the filling sets basically all the way through if we put straight up liquid filling mix onto the already crisped crust before the filling has thickened and set it'll SOG into the crust making the crust not crisp anymore even worse there's a chance of the liquid filling kind of running under the crust it just becomes this weird curd sandwich with the crust kind of floating we don't want that at all obviously so we cook the filling first on the stove we need 200 mL of lemon juice and zest of however many lemons it takes to get there mediumsized lemons you might need four to six these are pretty ginormous lemons so I'm going to start with four and if we need more we can always add more make sure that your lemons are well scrubbed because we're using the zest into the pan we'll add 300 G or 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar if you're not using a scale do the exact same steps but just use a dry measuring cup or a tablespoon or whatever you need we have our sugar in zero out our scale next goes in 6 tbspoon or 54 G of allpurpose flour just a pinch of salt to balance everything out the two optional ingredients that I was talking about first up some turmeric this is 1/16th of a teaspoon or just put in a nice pinch this won't flavor The Filling what it will do is deepen the yellow color so the funny thing about lemon bars is that the yellow color doesn't actually come from the lemon lemon juice is not very yellow right and the zest doesn't give much color so the yellow is actually coming basically purely from your eggs unless you have really nice Farm Fresh like organic eggs the bars might not come out as yellow as we want the turmeric is kind of just an insurance policy it'll help make sure that the bars come out nice sunny lemon yellow the second optional ingredient is a dry High powdered acid the thing is when making lemon curd there's only so much juice you can add in before the raos timer let's check on our crust be right back okay our crust has firmed up and is just beginning to Brown but it's still kind of a little bit pale in color and I say that it needs at least 5 more minutes hey Siri set timer for 5 minutes where were we oh yeah with lemons all the sourness is in the juice when making lemon curd there's only so much juice or liquid that you can add in before everything kind of falls apart and it won't set anymore even with fitting as much juice as I could into this lemon curd I found that the resulting flavor profile was delicious don't get me wrong lots of flavor perfect for eating on its own also perfect for those who like a lemon bar that's slightly more mellow on the tartness scale for me it was just missing that little bit of you know that thing that gets your um saliva glands working in overdrive that's what I was missing in the curd the only way to put that in without adding more liquid is with a dry acid here I have powdered citric acid which you know citric Citrus this is the exact acid that is found in lemon so this will work best I know that not everyone has citric acid in their kitchen even though I think you should but if you don't have citric acid what will also work is cream of tartar it also is a dry powdered acid I know a lot of people who bake will have cream of tartar at home so that is a pretty good substitute you do just need to use more of it because cream of tartar doesn't taste quite as tart as citric acid citric acid is know just like lemons for having a very clean acidity oh sorry my mouth is just watering now cream of tartter doesn't have quite that same really clean bright tartness that cuts through but it is enough to kind of push it over the edge and help create that Zing if you're going to use cream of Charter you'll need 1 and A2 teaspoons cream of tartter citric acid here I have half teaspoon let's check on our crust one more time it's firmed up even more now and more golden I'm beginning to smell it we don't need to go all the way golden at this time once the filling is on we will bake it some more but with that said I am looking for a little bit more brownness around the edges so I'm going to put it back in for another 2 to 3 minutes next we are going to go in with our eggs so that will be three whole eggs and then three egg yolks the reason why we don't use all whole eggs in here is because egg white is actually the portion of the egg that has that sulfurous eggy flavor so if we add too much egg white it'll have a more eggy taste that's three whole eggs I'm going to grab a little bowl to save the egg whites maybe an egg white omelette okay who are we kidding I've never in my life made an egg white omelet so that's definitely not going to happen what you can actually do for this video we are just making lemon bars but you can turn sorry you can turn the extra egg whites into mering and put it on top of these lemon bars and make a lemon mering bar for that purpose I prefer using a Swiss mering which is a cooked mering that passes izes the eggs and it's super stable so it's perfect for lemon mering comment below and let me know if you want the recipe I'll be happy to make that video okay let's quickly finish up these eggs and we can oh shoot okay didn't want to dirty my hands but it's fine honestly separating eggs with your hands is the best way because there's no chance of breaking the delicate yolk and even if I'm cracking eggs I'm going to wash my hands anyway so you know just Chuck these in the fridge and use it for something else let's check on our crust okay now I would say that this is ready it's evenly golden brown all over I can really smell the nuttiness of The Toasted flour it's slightly Brown along the edges so set this aside while we finish our filling keep the oven on this will be going back into the oven where were we all that's left is our lemon before juicing we'll want to zest our lemon this is most easily done with a micro plain grater I'm going for just that top yellow layer trying not to get too far into the white part the pith of the lemon because that can be quite bitter all of the lemon flavor is in that very like outside that contains all of the lemon oil the zest of four lemons will once you zest it all it will be around 2 tblspoon packed pretty tight that is four lemons worth of zest in there before we continue give this all a mix together probably easier done with a whisk but I have come this far and I don't really want a dirty a whisk if I don't have to on to our last component which is the lemon juice you can squeeze your lemon by hand but it's a lot easier with a citrus juicer like this I find it easiest to cut off the two pointy ends before cutting the lemon in half honestly these lemons are so big that I'm just going to cut three first and see where we end up in terms of juice amount zero out the scale if you're not using a scale squeeze the juice straight into a liquid measuring cup and we're looking for 200 mL 200 mL is 200 g we'll squeeze straight into our pan I won't even worry that much if any of the seeds end up in there I don't want too many but if there's a couple it's fine we are going to strain this before we use it anyway so anything that's in there will get weeded out did you know that you're not supposed to put the round side into the round side with the flat side up with the juicer might think that the natural way to do it but if you do this all the seeds kind of pop out the way you're meant to use a juicer is put the big flat side down and that way once we squeeze all the juice goes directly through these holes and it's just a lot more efficient I like to flip it over once I've squeezed it the first time and usually that gets out a little bit more juice that's one lemon we're already at 80 g not going to need four lemons probably not even all three this is why you have to measure the juice instead of just blindly going by oh the recipe says four lemons I'll use four lemons clearly lemons vary in size I've used other smaller lemons before and this recipe took six lemons what are we at 124 already we are aiming for 200 I think probably just another half maybe not so so close say you're like 190 G or 190 Ms of juice and you're almost there but you run out of lemons if it's just 10 15 maybe even 20 G or 20 MLS you can just make up the rest of that difference with water that 10 G or whatever won't make that much of a difference for me I do have this half left so you know what I'm actually going to cut it in half and save half of this for lemon wedges later on that way that it's like not pulverized and I will just squeeze this half perfect 200 g mix it all up so that it is homogeneous best not to mix on your scale because that can kind of mess with the mechanism and we really do want the scale to remain accurate now that it's all mixed up we can get on with cooking the curd crust has cooled a little bit it is completely firmed up the little micro cracks in there that is because of the lack of gluten it really really makes for that nice crust that I was looking for let me remind you again I can't stress the enough do not forget your butter when putting it aside don't put it back in the fridge keep the butter in sight at all times a spatula I'm going to switch to a bigger one we will Sie our curd straight into our crust a nice big Sie just keep it aside for now there are eggs in here and we do not want to cook this on a crazy high heat because you'll end up with scrambled eggs honestly even if there are little bits of curdled egg in there it'll all get strained out the problem is if you over scramble a curd or a custard like this is that it makes it taste really really eggy we don't want the egginess to interfere with the lemon flavor so just go nice and slow and gentle it helps if you use a pot with a heavy bottom so that it Heats more evenly we don't end up with hot spots also have a thermometer handy we're looking for our mixture to reach about 160 to 165 fah if you don't have a thermometer that's totally fine too once we've reached temperature I'll show you what texture we're looking for as always with cook concurred for much of the time it'll seem like nothing is happening and we're stirring in vain but once it hits that critical mass things happen really quickly so we do need to stir the whole time just so we can catch that perfect moment the thickening will happen first on the very bottom of the pot it'll form a layer as we stir we'll scrape up those bits and it'll seem like our curd is getting lumpy don't worry just keep stirring slowly and Trust the process once the rest of the curd thickens it all evens out again don't forget to scrape down the sides check the temperature o 158 we are almost there it's beginning to thicken you can see that on the edge of my spatula if you had your heat at medium low now is a good time to turn it down to actually quite low just so this last bit happens a little slower and we are in control that's the thickening that I was talking about that happens at the bottom this is pretty much the texture we're looking for It Coats the back of the spoon and leaves to find edges 150 oh 160 we are there turn off the heat and just keep stirring it until about 160 three of perfect take it off of the heat so that it doesn't keep cooking from the residual heat and that's the texture we're looking for we're not looking for it to be fully thick but that's definitely viscous and thicker than it was before it should coat the back of the spoon now into this hot curd we add that reserved 6 tblspoon of butter stir it until the butter melts in once the butter fully emulsifies in it'll go glossy and a little bit more translucent almost and just be absolutely beautiful something about making cage just calms me down it's so simple and just one of the foundational blocks of baking it helps that you know that you're going to get some delicious lemony goodness at the end of it at this point it is fully cooked so you could give it a taste and that's exactly what I'm going to do look at that texture oh so good now we strain our filling directly onto the crust I like to start off by keeping the Sie kind of resting on the crust that way we can fully scrape out our pan and not waste a single drop and then Sie this through press with the back of the spatula really good scrape set this aside if your feeling hasn't reached fully all of the edges just give it a nice little tilt and if there are any bubbles you can also just drop it a couple times put this back back into the oven to bake until the filling sets up this will take anywhere from 7 to around 15 minutes depending on whether you're using metal or glass how hot the crust was when you poured the filling in and blah blah blah I like to check at the 5 minute Mark and then after that maybe every 2 minutes or so what we're looking for is for the outside to puff up slightly only the center to give the beest bit of jiggle when we shake it into the oven I'm going to set a timer for 5 minutes and in the meantime we can start cleaning up a bit especially this pot get water in their stat because there's egg involved the stuff will conal and it's kind of hard to wash so it before that happens while we wait I'm going to have some tofu dessert what is this peach mango flavor the stuff is so nostalgic to me my mom would always give me one for like school lunch my favorite flavor is probably M I think coconut at the top and then maybe almond second anyone else love these tofu dessert things comment below and let me know your favorite flavor while I clean up we can talk next steps the one slightly annoying thing with lemon bars is that you can't even think about touching it once it's out of the oven it has to cool down fully all the way so that means like give it at least an hour and a half I would say preferably over 3 hour maybe even overnight and they will slice cleanly if you're doing it overnight let it cool down to room temperature or thereabouts then you can cover it and put it in the fridge definitely not ready yet it's still quite jiggly so I'm going to give it now maybe that was 5 minutes I'm going to give it 4 minutes the closer we get you'll want to check it at shorter and shorter intervals we don't want to overshoot it if we allow the filling to set up all the way in the oven once it comes out with the residual heat it'll overcook what else can we talk about if you've watched my videos before you might have noticed that I've redecorated a little bit nothing new on that side everything new on this side so this sign is new it says Mala which is numbing spice that's kind of the classic flavor profile of sichuanese food and sichuanese food is part of my soul and blood this I love cuz it's actually real neon got some beautiful gorgeous cows I have shoot still not quite done yet so we will set another timer for maybe 3 minutes this time photo of my grandparents in their kitchen in Citron this is the house that I kind of remember from my childhood cuz I did grow up in Citron until I was 6 before my family moved to Vancouver my grandparents obviously stay a meal that my grandma cooked for me the last time I was back in China my favorite Classics you know we have tomato egg we have cabbage with black vinegar and we have um sliced potatoes chili dried chilies and potato with dried chili stir fried as well all like really classic sanes dishes what was I doing oh oven let me just show you the texture here the outside is starting to slightly Puff the whole thing is jiggling as one I'm going to give it another minute or two I'm just looking for a slightly more set so that the middle doesn't jiggle quite as much as me and jordo we were on satna island which is one of the gulf islands near Vancouver and it's just the most beautiful place okay yeah we will call it there exactly what we're looking for around the edge puffed up a little bit jiggle it it's not fully set it still moves a little bit but just barely and the whole thing should kind of move as one and it shouldn't Ripple anymore as if it were liquid now we just have to let this cool all the way down which honestly is the hardest part of the recipe it's 9:40 p.m. already so I'm not going to get into cutting this tonight what I'm going to do is let this chill at room temp for maybe another hour hour and a half and then I will cover it with some foil and stick it into the fridge and we will continue tomorrow tomorrow so yeah we'll see you tomorrow it's the next day now the bars have been chilling in the fridge overnight last night I put them in after about an hour maybe hour 15 of cooling down they really they should have gone for longer cuz they were still slightly warm by the time they went in the fridge so I am expecting just a little bit of condensation to have formed on the surface of the bars but that's okay we'll blot it down with some paper towel cover everything with powdered suggar anyway so nobody will know or if they're not going to set out for more than say 6 to 8 hours you can just leave them at room temperature let's check in on our bars as you can see some condensation on top that is entirely because of putting something warm in the fridge obviously water will condense we will need to blot it down if we try to put powdered sugar on top it'll just melt but that's okay we'll get this out of here damp toil to wipe our Blade with a little bit of powdered sugar and a knife to cut the moment I lifted it out I got a waft of that Nutty Brown butter smell and it it's just so good look at that perfect layer we got with the curd and the crust and the crust is perfectly Brown all right hopefully this does not screw up the bars see this might leave a little grid mark from the texture of the paper towel oh okay not bad at all yeah if this does happen to you and I'm sure it won't cuz you'll be smart and you'll let the bars cool but if it does just know that it'll be fine be gentle keep a damp towel on hand we'll use it to dampen down our knife and also wipe off in between each cut it'll just make for Clean Cuts dampen your knife start by trimming off a little bit from the edges clean out our knife very happy with that now we can actually slice them let's make this as even as we can there there four two isn't that just so satisfying look at those clean clean cuts don't waste these edges eat them oh yeah tons of flavor because we used the zest of four whole lemons so good you see that glossy translucent perfectly set filling this crust will not fall apart on you it's sturdy enough to hold up to the filling perfectly browned so much flavor in [Music] there make sure to do it right before you serve them otherwise the sugar will dissolve fing to crust ratio right there that is perfect for me H oh yeah that filling is so smooth yet with that super bright flavor so lemony the crust remains so crisp and that's after having sat overnight in the fridge so many lemon bars have that kind of pale slightly translucent face that is almost the same texture as the filling I I I just don't love that here we have contrast we have crispness the base does doesn't just exist to hold the lemon it brings its own in terms of flavor that extra toastiness from the brown butter and the perfect amount of [Music] salt I mean I I am pretty biased but I would also argue that my opinion when it comes to lemon bars is the only one that's correct and that's why you should trust me and just go ahead and make these lemon bars if you do make these bars please comment below let me know how it goes for you if you make my recipes and then you tell me how it goes whether really well and you're positive or maybe not so well not every recipe goes well always even for me if you take those experiences and come back with constructive feedback or things that you had to do to make the recipe work for you in your own kitchen it just helps everyone out I just love that a lot of the times people will have a question or an issue and before I've even had time to jump in someone else in the comments will chime in and it's just such a nice lovely wholesome warm baking cooking food community that we've somehow managed to get here and yeah I just feel truly blessed that I get to do this for you guys with you guys all of my recipes are designed to be super high impact for the lowest amount of effort possible if I can make them here in my little apartment kitchen then I know for sure that you'll be able to make them at home as well I really put a lot of work into these recipes cuz I don't want you to waste ingredients I love seeing people get to bake delicious things like isn't it just the best feeling ever getting to share baked goods wow I'm really rambling here now back to the topic yes please comment if you make these bars as always full written recipe will be down in the description while you're down there don't forget to hit the like button smash that subscribe I don't know what else people say of the the ring the bell notifications and I'll see you next [Music] time okay actually bye sheldo out it's literally a wall here I don't even know where I'm walking girl take things a little too far that's why you left Mark I'm not just some oh my [Music] God