Lemon Bars

This really is my kind of recipe, easy and quick. We found this recipe in Paul Newman's "The Hole in the Wall Gang Cookbook". The crumbly shortbread crust was easy to make and very kid friendly as the book claims. Perfect for our kitchen! This one has a good balance between the tartness and sweetness that the girls and hubby liked. I tend to like my lemon bars on the tart side so they were apprehensive about trying this at first, but one taste is all it took to convince them that it wasn't my usual mouth-puckering lemon concoction :).

INGREDIENTS:
Crust
2 cups Flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 sticks cold, unsalted butter

Lemon Filling
4 Eggs, lightly beaten
5 TBSP Lemon Juice
1 teaspoon Orange extract
2 cups Sugar
1/3 cup Flour
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
Powdered Sugar for garnish
Whipped Cream (optional)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
In a medium bowl, stir together the flour and powdered sugar. Cut the cold butter into small pieces and mix into the flour and sugar mixture until the mixture is crumbly and starts to stick together. Pat this mixture into the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch baking dish as evenly as you can. If gets too sticky, you can use plastic wrap over your hands to smooth it out. Bake the crust in the oven for 30 minutes or until it is golden brown.
While the crust is baking, assemble the lemon filling. In a medium bowl, mix the eggs, lemon juice, orange extract and sugar. Stir in the flour and baking powder and mix well.
Pour the filling mixture over the baked crust and bake for another 30 minutes until the edges are set. The middle may be a little jiggly. That's ok, it will set as it cools. Remove the pan from the oven and generously sprinkle the top with powdered sugar. Let it cool for at least ten minutes before cutting. You may serve with whipped cream on top as suggested by the book, but it was great just by itself. The girls even took some for their lunch the next day.