RECIPE: Amish Lemon Squares

I posted over at Facebook around Father's Day about whether I should make lemon squares or Key Lime pie for my in-laws (I ended up making both) and a great number of people sent me messages asking if I'd be willing to share my recipes with people.

Naturally, I was all, "Well, SURE!" because I am all about being kind to people and doing nice things for them, even if I sent them a friend request that it took them over a month to answer, as if they were running a background check on me and had to wait for the results before confirming that they knew me.

I knew I should have used both my maiden and married names on my Facebook profile.

Anyway, my mother and I got this recipe from an Amish lady in either Middlebury, Indiana or Shipshewana, I can't remember which. The lady was running a little bakery out of a picturesque shed behind her house and I can't even tell you the wonders we beheld in the glass case that was set up in there. Or that she was really kind about the fact that I'd stepped in gum and left clingy bits of sticky pink goo all over her pristine linoleum floor.

We left sans gum but with this recipe, which was not really a fair trade. Especially since the lemon squares are so easy to make, but I'm sure those little bits of nasty bubble gum were a real pain in the prayer bonnet to get up off the floor.

AMISH LEMON SQUARES

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 cup soft butter, plus 2 tablespoons (yes, you read that right)
4 eggs, beaten
2 cups granulated sugar
1/3 cup ReaLemon concentrated lemon juice
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together first three ingredients in a medium mixing bowl until mixture clings; press evenly into a 9x13" baking pan and bake at 350^o for twenty-five minutes.

While crust is baking, rinse out the mixing bowl. Break the four eggs into the bowl and beat; add sugar and ReaLemon. Sift together the flour and baking powder and add to egg mixture, stirring to combine. Pour over baked crust and bake for twenty-five minutes at 350 degrees. Allow lemon squares to cool and sprinkle with a bit of powdered sugar. Cut into squares and serve.*


*In the Amish lady's pastry case, the lemon squares were about as big as my head. So depending on what you're looking for in a lemon square, whether it is a full-on sugary citrus rush or a dainter specimen you can nibble while drinking a cup of Earl Grey tea, cut them in whatever size suits your need.