Meyer Lemon Bars (Secret Recipe Club)

It's Secret Recipe Club reveal day once again and we were assigned Life's Simple Pleasures, a beautiful blog that is completely overflowing with recipes for bars, breads, cakes, cookies, pies, tarts, and snacks, as well as a few savory dishes. We scrolled our way down the recipe list trying hard to decide what to make. It wasn't easy! Should we try to make challah bread? How about a fallen souffle chocolate torte - doesn't that sound amazing?!?!? Or candied bacon chocolate chip cookies? Um, yum!!! All of these are most assuredly on our to-do list. 

What forced our final decision for this month, though, was that we have made two batches of Meyer lemon curd in the last couple of weeks and we have been looking for something way with which to use it when we spotted LSP's lemon bars. They looked so lovely and reminded us so much of sunshine and springtime that we just had to go with them. 

We made them to take to our neighbors' St. Patrick's Day dinner so we gave them a little Irish twist by tinting some powdered sugar green with green food coloring and making shamrock decorations on them. Chris finnagled a cookie cutter/aluminum foil thingie to make that work. He's a good problem solver!

Although we didn't use the lemon topping part of the recipe (since we used our lemon curd instead), the crust was to die for. Flaky, tender and buttery indeed. They were sunny bites of citrus heaven. Now if spring would just get here already, we'd be all set!

Meyer Lemon Bars

recipe from Life's Simple Pleasures

Ingredients:

2 cups unsalted butter, softened

4 cups all purpose flour

1 cup powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

1/2 cup Meyer lemon curd

additional powdered sugar for garnish
green food coloring (if desired)

In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and powdered sugar. Add salt, lemon zest and flour; mix only until combined and crumbly. Spread dough evenly in a 12x18-inch sheet pan. Using a piece of wax paper, press down down as flat as possible. Refrigerate dough for 30 minutes. Heat oven to 350 and bake crust for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Set aside to cool. Spread lemon curd evenly over crust and return to oven. Bake additional 15 minutes. Dust with powdered sugar and refrigerate 1 hour to set. Cut and serve.

Meyer Lemon Curd

Amy writes:

So a couple of weeks ago we took a baking class called Baking for English Tea, and one of the recipes we learned to make was lemon curd. Then Chris went away for the weekend, off to a theoretical physics conference in Santa Barbara, California. Yeah, I don't really know what that is, either. 

Anyway... I was feeling a little bored, and I knew that if I made something yummy, I could bring it to the last winter farmers' market and enter it into the swap for something else. I had a bunch of Meyer lemons at home, so I decided to make a batch of Meyer lemon curd. The recipe made enough for 2 decent-sized jars, so I kept one for myself (well, I may share it with Mr. Science) and brought one to the swap where I swapped it for a pretty little dragonfly made from recycled silverware (Thanks, Ed)! Love it!

So, as hinted at in an earlier post, here's the recipe for Meyer lemon curd. The recipe is from Chef Chris French, who makes his with "normal" lemons, but there is something I just love about the hint of sweetness the Meyer lemon offers. If you like things a little more tart, use regular lemons but add another 2 tablespoons of sugar.

Meyer Lemon Curd

recipe courtesy of Chef Chris French

Ingredients:

5 Meyer lemons, zested and juiced

8 egg yolks

1 cup granulated sugar

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pats

Whisk the lemon zest, lemon juice, egg yolks and sugar together in a stainless steel bowl. Create a double-boiler by placing the bowl over a sauce pan with simmering water. Gently heat the contents of the bowl on low to medium heat, stirring frequently. Continue to heat until the mixture is very thick and reaches 180-185 degrees. Immediately remove the bowl from the pan and pour the contents through a fine mesh sieve to remove the zest and any egg solids (discard those). Immediately put 2 pats of butter into the lemon curd and whisk in until incorporated. Continue by adding 1 pat at a time, whisking until incorporated before adding the next. Cover with plastic wrap in contact with the lemon curd and refrigerate until set, 4 hours or longer. Serve with scones as a spread or to fill mini tarts, or as a topping on shortbread. 

Cooking Class: Baking for English Tea

A couple of weekends ago, we took another baking class at Manchester Community College (our local community college, well-known for its culinary program). This one was with the same instructor (Chris French) as the pizza and focaccia class. Obviously we were so pleased with the first class, we had to sign up for another, and obviously, our baking skills could use some work.

Chef Chris French at his demo station

This class was called, "Baking for English Tea," and it started off with some clarification about English tea, mainly that what people often refer to as "high tea" is actually a less formal, dinner-type setting whereas a tea at which there might be sweets and pastries is traditionally the more formal "afternoon tea." Who knew? The class would focus on the latter, with the goals being to learn and participate in making scones, shortbread, and cream puffs, and to learn via demonstration how to make lemon curd, Devonshire cream, pastry cream and an English trifle. Quite ambitious, but we had five hours together, so we forged ahead.

Amy tried "rub method mixing"

Scone dough

Amy's partner forms our scones

Chris tops his scones with some sanding sugar

First we watched as Chef Chris demonstrated and explained how to make scones, and then we paired up and made our own scones with cranberries and walnuts. The most important thing with this recipe was that we hand mixed the scones, learning how to rub the butter in by hand, which is not as easy as it sounds, but definitely leads to better results. We could choose whether to bake our scones during class or take home the dough to freeze, but since we are "A Couple in the Kitchen," we were able to do both. The scones were fluffier and lighter than we've had in the past, thanks to the hand-mixing method we guess, and we would certainly try the recipe again. When we do, we'll share it with you.

Amy slices her golden-brown shortbread

Next thing we did was make shortbread. Now we have tried shortbread in the past, with relative success, but ours simply does not compare to the buttery crisp amazing cookie we learned in this class. We look forward to topping a sheet of these with some homemade jam or lemon curd and making delicious bars to share with the neighborhood!!!

Making pate a choux

Everyone got a chance to try to pipe the pate a choux dough

Delicious cream puff!

Pate a choux (cream puff dough) we are well familiar with, thanks to Dorie Greenspan and her gorgeous gougere recipe. But we learned a few tips on how to improve our technique, such as using bread flour instead of all-purpose flour, getting a good sheen on the dough by adding in an extra egg, and piping the dough when it's warm and fresh. 

Chocolate Croissants

The scones had been set aside to eat later along with the various curds and creams, and everything else was in the oven. Luckily, Chef Chris was thoughtful enough to bring in some of his homemade chocolate croissants for us to nibble on in the meantime. Just look at these beauties!

Lemon curd, mock Devon cream, whipped cream

The reward for a hard day's work

When the hands-on part of the class was done, we fixed tea and sipped while Chef demonstrated his recipes for pastry cream, lemon curd, and "mock" Devon cream (aka clotted cream). The real Devonshire cream runs for about $7 for a small 4-ounce jar, if you can even find it. Chef's mock version can be made in about 10 minutes and costs a fraction of real Devonshire cream. Here's what you do:

Mock Devon Cream 

recipe courtesy of Chef Chris French

Ingredients:

3 ounces (6 tablespoons) cream cheese, cold

1 cup heavy cream, cold

Using a stand mixer with the whip attachment, beat the cream cheese until it is smooth and lump-free. Add the cream and beat until stiff. Chill before serving. 

A beautiful English trifle

Finally, we tried all of these goodies while watching Chef assemble a beautiful English trifle. We met some great people, had a fun day, and learned plenty of new tricks and tips to help up become better bakers. These recipes would be perfect for Easter, Mother's Day, or just for hosting your own English tea! Once we try any of these things at home, we will be sure to let you know. 

If you are interested in taking a credit-free culinary class at MCC, here is a link to the credit-free catalog.