Sunday Suppa: lemon bar dessert

I was feeling uninventive and indecisive before grocery shopping this morning so I decided that instead of boring you with my chicken parmigiano covered in gooey mozzarella cheese that I would try Ina Garten's lemon bar recipe. I am convinced that I cannot bake very well. My apple pies never turn out as beautiful as my mothers and always need to be a little bit firmer even though I follow my mother’s recipe as close to exactly as I can get. I am terrified of overcooking and undercooking dessert.

In my search for dinner ideas this week I came upon the lemon bar recipe and was reunited with a lemon sweet craving I have had since last summer. I had little faith in myself to pull of lemon cheese cake. This bar recipe looked simple enough and I had almost all the ingredients minus the lemons and eggs.

I need to watch someone bake and follow along. I made the crust first wondering if my problem is not that I cannot make the crust, but that I have little patience to make the crust look nice in the pan. I was pressing and spreading the crust out in the pan and I got anxious. Is this thick enough, high enough, smooth enough? I knew it tasted good after I sampled the buttery goodness.

The filling was super easy. I waited to add the eggs with the lemon juice until I was ready to mix. I wasn’t sure if the acid would affect the protein in the eggs in some weird way or not if I let them sit together while dumping in the other ingredients. Of course when I poured the filling on the crust, my crust was thick enough, not high enough, and the smoothness really did not matter. I felt glad that Mike is always thoughtful and thankful when trying anything I make.

I try my hardest to let bake things cool and I think I got pretty close this time when I cut into the warm lemon bars. I took the corner piece that I had made unpretty in my cutting and gave Mike the nice piece. They were good. I slowly ate my piece enjoying the mixture of tart and sweet. Mike hovered the bar.

Was it that bad or was it that good?

I might have to have another one.

Now if only I could make it perfectly delicious...