Lemon Bar with Raspberry Shortbread Crumble

I’m on a crumble kick right now! I put this recipe together not quite knowing how successful it would be, but I must say it’s pretty darn good and combines some of my favorite flavors and textures. Yesterday was quite the baking adventure filled with blunders, however I had some furry friends keeping me company and making me smile!

This weekends full moon in Capricorn’s got me feeling a little off to say the least, and yesterday probably wasn’t the best day for me to be in the kitchen cooking and baking at the same time haha :P. I kept dropping or breaking things, almost cut my finger off, and totally did not bake my recipe how I intended (*more on that later); but all the weirdness going wrong just kept making me laugh more each time so it turned out to be fun oddly enough. P.S. If you’re interested in astrology and moon happenings, check out my favorite go-to website: Mystic Mama.

 

So it’s no secret I love lemon and raspberry, and I love the flavor and texture of shortbread, so I wanted to add that altogether for a new treat to try in the kitchen. I baked this in a smaller square glass dish and tailored the measurements to fit that portion, if you’d like to make a larger portion (like brownie-pan size), double the ingredient measurements.

Lemon Curd Ingredients:

• Zest and juice from 1 1/2 lemons
• 3/4 cups pure cane sugar
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 tsp salt

Shortbread Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1/2 cup pure cane sugar
• Zest from 1/2 a lemon
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1/4 tsp salt

Raspberry Crumble Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup chopped almonds
• 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 1/2 tbs unsalted butter, melted
• 1 heaping tbs of raspberry preserves (feel free to add more if you want more raspberry flavor)

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Begin making your lemon curd by creaming the butter and sugar together with a mixer. Add eggs 1 at a time, mixing until well-combined, then add the salt, lemon juice and lemon zest.
3. Pour curd ingredients into a pan over low-medium heat and cook until liquid forms into a curd. This takes about 10 minutes and you should stir constantly to aide in thickening the curd. The curd is ready once it has thickened and it coats the back of a spoon. Remove from the heat, pour into a bowl and allow to cool.
4. To make your shortbread, cream together the butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy. Slowly add the flour, then add the zest, salt and vanilla mixing until all ingredients are well-combined and form a dough. Reserve 1/4 of the dough into a bowl and set aside.
5. Take remaining dough and gently press it into your glass baking dish. Pour the cool lemon curd mixture onto the shortbread and spread until it evenly coats the shortbread layer.
6. Make your crumble by mixing together all of the dry ingredients, then add the butter and toss until crumble forms. Take the crumble and add it to the bowl of reserved shortbread dough. Lastly, add the raspberry preserves and mix everything together until combined. Break this mixture into small crumbles and toss it onto the lemon curd layer, then bake at 350 for 25 minutes (or until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean). Allow to cool, then it’s ready to serve! If you’d like an extra hint of sweet, dust confectioners sugar overtop.

*So I mentioned this wasn’t exactly what I intended – I intended to pre-bake the bottom shortbread layer to get a firm cookie-like texture before adding the curd and crumble. I feared that the shortbread and curd would bake weirdly given the different consistencies, and every 5 minutes or so I’d take a peak and say “yeahhhh, this doesn’t look right” lol, but something in me was just like “let it go and see what happens”. I’m glad I did because this ended up being a super good bar that I will definitely make again! The texture of the bottom shortbread layer has a crunch to it, but it’s also somewhat softer, then the lemon curd is soft and gooey, and the crumble is crunch and fantastic!

I learned some good life lessons while in the kitchen yesterday: 1. When the day feels off, tackle one thing at a time (cooking dinner and baking at the same time sounds like a great idea but sometimes is just too much, even if it does result in laughs). And 2. Remember patience; and sometimes if something seems wrong, you gotta give the final result a chance to come to fruition before you give up. With that, I’m going to have some hot tea in my Buddha cup and enjoy a bar!

I hope you are having a lovely weekend, happy Sunday, enjoy!

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