Lemon Bars

I’ve decided to experiment with Gluten Free baking. I enjoy baking; it is something I don’t want to give up. With some of my Christmas money, I have invested in Gluten-Free flours and ingredients.

I decided to make Lemon bars to share with my co-workers. I love lemon bars, and I love that I can still eat a GF version of them. I used a recipe from the The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook: Breakfasts, Entrees, and More by Elana Amsterdam. The recipe uses Almond flour, a new ingredient to me, but it gives the crust a nice texture. Grapeseed oil is sweet and worth the investment. B and I have used agave nectar before in beer making, but this was my first time cooking with it – it has a consistency similar to honey.

The recipe says that it makes 24 bars, but I have more than 24 co-workers, a hungry husband, and I don’t own an 8 x 8 cake pan, so I doubled the recipe. Here are the measurements I used, but they can easily be halved to make a single batch.

For the crust:

3 cups almond flour

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

4 T grapeseed oil

2 T agave nectar

1 T vanilla extract

Mix the flour and the salt together, and then add the wet ingredients. Mix until smooth. I didn’t even have to use my mixer for this, I just used a spoon. Spray, butter or grease an 8 x 16in pan. Pour the batter into the pan, and then place it into an oven that has been preheated to 350. Let the crust pre bake in the oven for 15 mins.

For the filling:

1/2 cup grapeseed oil

1/2 cup agave nectar

6 eggs

1cup fresh lemon juice.

While the crust is baking, make the filling. If I had known earlier in my life that lemon bars were so easy to make, I would have made them more often. Put all the ingredients in the blender. Blend until smooth. Then, pour it into the pan, on top of the crust. Put it all back into the oven at 350. Check after 15mins, but mine ended up taking a total of 20mins to set up. Let them cool – to speed up this step, I shoved the whole pan into the refrigerator until it was time to go to work…or about 30mins.

WARNING – these are very tart!