What Are the Ingredients Used for Lemon Bars?
Our lemon bar dessert squares start with a flaky crust made with flour, butter, and powdered sugar.
Butter: The butter gets the credit for making the crust so deliciously tender.
Powdered Sugar: The powdered sugar adds just a hint of sweetness to pair well with the filling. Then the remaining powdered sugar gets sprinkled over the bars for a bakery-like finish!
Fresh Lemon: Fresh lemon zest and juice give the bars fresh lemony flavor and zing.
Granulated Sugar: Granulated sugar provides the balance of sweetness to the tartness of the lemon ingredients.
Eggs: Eggs add structure to the filling, making it lemon curd-like, while baking powder allows the filling to rise when baked.
Salt: A tiny amount of salt is added to balance all the flavors.
What is the Best Time to Make Lemon Bars?
Lemon squares are like a great pair of jeans…you can take them anywhere! From the paper bag lunch to a PTO meeting, an afternoon tea party or a holiday spread, lemon bars are welcomed at any event from casual to fancy. You can serve them straight out of the pan for a casual event or place them on a plate or tray.
Fancy Events: To serve lemon bars for a fancy event, consider placing individual bars in colorful paper baking cups used for muffins or cupcakes on a tray.
School Lunches: For lunch boxes, simply wrap a bar or two in plastic wrap and place on top of the other lunch items, so they will not get damaged in transit. What a yummy lunchtime treat!
Holiday Gatherings: If you’re serving lemon dessert squares for the holidays, you can serve them on their own (on a holiday tray or plate) or as part of a variety of bars on a tray.
Their sweet-tart flavor is a nice complement to other sweeter, heavier bars or cookies, like brownies or frosted sugar cookies. Need a gluten-free lemon bar option? Try our amazing gluten-free lemon squares. Want more great bar recipes? Try these recipes next.
How Should I Store Lemon Bars?
These amazing, fresh lemony bars are always a hit. If you have any leftovers, here’s how to store them, to enjoy their deliciousness another day! Fridge: Since lemon bar recipes are made with eggs, it is important to cover them in a single layer and refrigerate any remaining bars. You can eat them cold, right out of the fridge, if you like. Or, if you don’t like to eat cold bars, take them out about 15 minutes before serving. Bars can be stored up to 5 days, however the crust will become moist and less flaky over time. The flavor will still be as yummy, but the crust will just be softer.
Freezer
Lemon dessert squares should not be frozen, as the lemon curd-like filling will become watery and the crust will not be flaky when thawed .
Frequently Asked Questions
Our lemon bar recipe gives you both a baking time range and doneness cue (as do most of our recipes), so that you will know exactly when the bars are done to perfection. Set your timer to the minimum time, then test the bars to see if no indentation remains when touched lightly in center with your finger. If an indentation remains, set your timer for an additional minute or two and test again. If there is no indentation, your bars are done baking!
If you would like a little powdered sugar over the top, wait until the bars are cooled and then put a spoonful of powdered sugar into a fine mesh strainer. Tap the handle of the strainer over the bars as you move it, for just the right amount! Cut the bars once they are completely cooled, so they have the best shape.
Add Food Coloring For kids, you could add a few drops of liquid food color to the filling mixture in Step 2. Tint them to match the holiday, their team colors or their favorite color!
Fun Shapes: Cut the cooled bars into fun shapes with small, simple-shaped cookie cutters, such as a circle, daisy, or diamond. Enjoy the scraps over ice cream!
Extra Toppings Top them with fun, colorful sprinkles or sweet-and-tart gummy candy on each instead of powdered sugar.
If you really love lemon, try our Bold Lemon Bars variation above, doubling the lemon zest and juice for pucker up lemon bars! Or for another yummy lemon bar recipe, try the Oatmeal-Lemon Crème Bars recipe next! You can also skip the powdered sugar on top of the bars, topping them with whipped cream and a sprig of mint, if you like.
Grating lemons is a quick process. The easiest way to grate lemons is to use a microplane grater or the small holes of a box grater. Rub the microplane grater over the lemon with the open side up (to catch all of the peels) or place the box grater on a plate and rub the lemon over the holes. Grate just the lemony-yellow part of the lemon skin—the zest, which contains the essential flavor oils of the fruit. Do not continue to grate through the underlying white part, called the pith, because it is bitter tasting.
Wrap the “bald” lemons tightly with plastic wrap; store them in the refrigerator to use in recipes that call for lemon juice or squeeze them when making a smoothie to add brightness to the flavor.
Lemon Squares
- Prep Time 10 min
- Total 2 hr 0 min
- Servings 25
- Ingredients 10
Ingredients
- 1 cup Gold Medal™ All Purpose Flour
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1/4 cup powdered sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- Powdered sugar
Instructions
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Step1
Heat oven to 350°F. In medium bowl, mix flour, butter and 1/4 cup powdered sugar until well mixed. Press in ungreased 8- or 9-inch square pan, building up 1/2-inch edges.
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Step2Bake crust 20 minutes; remove from oven. In medium bowl, beat remaining ingredients except additional powdered sugar with electric mixer on high speed about 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Pour over hot crust.
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Step3Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until no indentation remains when touched lightly in center. Cool completely in pan on cooling rack, about 1 hour. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Cut into 5 rows by 5 rows.
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Nutrition
Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 1 Square
- Calories
- 100
- Calories from Fat
- 35
- Total Fat
- 4g
- 6%
- Saturated Fat
- 2 1/2g
- 12%
- Trans Fat
- 0g
- Cholesterol
- 25mg
- 8%
- Sodium
- 70mg
- 3%
- Potassium
- 15mg
- 0%
- Total Carbohydrate
- 13g
- 4%
- Dietary Fiber
- 0g
- 0%
- Sugars
- 10g
- Protein
- 1g
% Daily Value*:
- Vitamin A
- 2%
- 2%
- Vitamin C
- 0%
- 0%
- Calcium
- 0%
- 0%
- Iron
- 0%
- 0%
