Last days of summer ~ Lemon Bars

I had these lemon bars as a feature dessert on our menu during the summertime. My favorite thing to cook with is lemon, I love how fresh it tastes. The bright yellow color, the tartness of the juice, and splash of citrus flavor you get from the zest can immediately add sunshine to anything your cooking. These Lemon bars are perfect for parties and make a great finger food dessert. I know I will be adding them to my list of sweets to bring to my sons school parties.
  Making dessert bars is a pretty easy method and once you get started you can play around with different flavors and ingredients.

To start you need to make the bottom layer:

Dough:
1 stick unsalted butter - room temp
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups flour
pinch of kosher salt

Cream together your butter and sugar
*the creaming process is very important when baking anything, but mostly in cakes. (Your butter has to be at room temp and you can not speed up this process by microwaving!)

Once you have creamed your butter and sugar slowly add your flour and pinch of salt until your dough comes together. Turn out your dough on a floured work surface and bring it together with your hands. This should be a quick process.
Line your baking pan with parchment paper or foil and spray lightly with pan spray. You want your parchment paper to over lap the sides so you can easily lift out your bars and cut them. Also use a pan with larger sides, you will be pouring a curd into the dish and you don't want it to run. (I made this mistake)
Take your dough and press it evenly throughout the bottom of the whole pan.

Chill your dough for about 10 min then bake at 350 for about 12 min or until just golden brown.
While your dough is baking get out a mixing bowl and make your lemon curd.

6 eggs
3 egg yolks
3 cups sugar
1 cup fresh lemon juice
1 Tbs lemon zest
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup heavy cream

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. When your bottom layer has cooled pour your curd over the cookie and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. It is finished when the curd is set so it should not wiggle when you move your pan.
Let cool and top with powdered sugar.

I served mine with a blueberry sauce but any fresh fruit or just by themselves is perfect for me!

Enjoy and Happy Eatings,
Krystal

Cobblers, Tarts, and Pies..oh my! Part 2 - Plum Cobbler

So last post I made a beautiful French Nectarine Tart with a buttery and flaky crust. I hope you all got to enjoy that for yourselves at home. Now we have moved on to part 2 of Cobblers, Tarts, and Pies..oh my! The always unforgettable cobbler. In this case a plum cobbler or crisp I should say because I always make my cobblers with a crispy yet still moist and chewy topping! I absolutely love this dessert! This dessert is perfect for any occasion from early fall all the way through winter and you can use just about any fall and winter fruit you want! Today it's plums.
        I found the plums today nestled in with the nectarines, you almost couldn't tell a difference. These plums aren't the dark purple colored plums from summer they were the red and yellow colored plums and they were perfectly ripe, not to sweet with a tart bite. It was late afternoon here and a humid yet rainy day so it was almost dark out. When I got started on making my cobbler I had just cleaned the kitchen. I had a load of laundry going and I decided to light a candle to help make my house smell better because my mom was coming over to stay with us for the night, so obviously I wanted the appearance of a an up-kept home! In the middle of slicing and pitting my plums it starts to thunder and then comes the rain. I am in my kitchen with the sound of the rain, my kids laughter upstairs, and the smell of this cheap cinnamon candle and that was it....Summer had officially ended for me at that moment, fall is here and the holidays are creeping up on me. I kept getting flashbacks of years past with cozy fires, football on the T.V. and being surrounded by friends and family. Next thing you know I'm getting choked up, yes I know it's totally ridiculous to stand in your kitchen and tear up while making plum cobbler, but what it really did was put me right back in my place. The place of "oh yeah this is why I do this". This is why you quit your job to go after your dream, this is why you put your family under a huge financial strain, and this is why you are 31 and working in a kitchen for an hourly wage and mopping floors at midnight. I did and am currently doing all these things for this exact reason, this exact feeling. Every good heart warming and even some not so heart warming moments have always included food. Sitting around a dinner table, standing around an island in a kitchen, or just being out and about eating (and sometimes drinking), it's all about the moments in life. Food can trigger those moments or make those moments and that's why I have a passion for it. I want be a part of your moments and help make them great. I want to make you get choked up in your kitchen when you are cooking something that has a meaning. Food brings us all together in some way or another and I hope in a small way I can bring people together to.
DANG is this a food blog or my personal therapy session!!! Lets get back to the cobbler people!
   First of all you want to start by pitting your plums and slicing them. Just cut them in half and use a spoon or a small paring knife to cut out the pits then slice them thin.

Place all your sliced plums directly into your baking dish.
To your plums add:

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup AP Flour
1/4 tsp cinnamon
3 Tbs champagne (optional)
1 Tbs orange juice

*note if you do not have champagne around your house like me because I love mimosas on Sunday you can just add 2 Tbs orange juice all together

For the crumb topping:

1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 cup AP Flour
zest of 1 orange
1 stick cold butter cut into cubes
1/2 tsp salt (kosher salt)
1/2 cup oats

* note you can substitute pecans or walnuts for the oats or add both

In the bowl of a standing mixer add your flour, sugars, salt, orange zest, and oats. Mix until combined then add your cubed butter. Keeping your mixer on a low speed this process should take about 2 full minutes. You want to mix the topping until it looks moist and can form a ball in your hand when you squeeze it. Here is a look at the process..

cubed butter                                                                     about 1 minute of mixing

      














2 minutes                                                                     Holds together


                               Crumble your topping over the plums..

 

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until the topping is golden brown and the sides are bubbly! I serve mine warm and with vanilla bean ice cream! 

It may not look fancy, but it's a cobbler you will cry over.....

Happy Eatings everyone and I hope this will bring you some sort of special moment!

   

Krystal