Pink Lemonade Bars (Raspberry Lemon Bars)

As a fruity compliment to the decadent Chocolate Cake with Espresso Buttercream that I made for our extended family potluck last month, I made a batch of Pink Lemonade Bars (a.k.a. Raspberry Lemon Bars) just to make sure I had all my bases covered.  And yes, this bar is the more fibrous sister of the Gorgeous Strawberry Blonde Bars I made a couple of years ago.

Here is the recipe as adapted from Smitten Kitchen:

INGREDIENTS:

For the crust:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
• 1 cup all-purpose flour

For the pink lemonade layer:

• 1 cup raspberries
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 2 lemons’ worth)
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• Powdered sugar, for dusting

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line an 8x8x2-inch baking pan or Pyrex with parchment, letting it extend up two sides. Butter or coat the bottom and sides with a nonstick spray and set the pan aside.
2. Make the base: In a food processor, pulse together the sugar, zest and salt until combined. Add the butter and pulse until it is evenly dispersed in the dough. Add the flour and pulse the machine until it’s just combined and the mixture is crumbly. Press the dough into the prepared pan and about 1/2-inch up the sides. Don’t worry about making this perfect – no one can tell once the filling is in it.  Bake for 15 minutes, until lightly browned at edges. Let cool on a rack while you prepare the filling. Leave the oven on.
3. Make the pink lemonade layer: Puree the raspberries in a food processor until they’re as liquefied as they’ll get. You don’t have to wash the food processor in between steps, but just make sure there aren’t any huge chunks of dough in there before adding the raspberries. Run the puree through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing out all the raspberry puree that you can.  Leave the seeds behind. You’ll net about 1/3 cup strained puree, but don’t worry if you have a little less than that.

   

4. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar and lemon juice until smooth. Whisk in 3 tablespoons of raspberry puree. Stir in flour. Pour into cooling crust and return pan to the oven, baking the bars until they’re set (they’ll barely jiggle) and slightly golden at the edges, about 25 to 30 minutes. Cool completely before cutting into rectangles. (You can speed this up in the fridge.)

   

5. I cut these into 16 2×2-inch squares and each one fit snugly in a standard cupcake liner.  Dust with powdered sugar just before serving. You can store these in the fridge in an airtight container for up to a week.

I didn’t get to try these because they were eaten up by our family potluck attendees, but I typically assume running out quickly is a good sign!