Deconstructed Lemon Meringue Pie Bars

The final product: meringue-topped lemon curd bars.

Deconstructed Lemon Meringue Pie Bars

With all the lemon bars I’ve been baking, I’m starting to feel like my life motto should be something along the lines of:

When life gives you lemons… make lemon bars.

The other day my coworker brought in Meyer lemons from her tree, and there were just so many. On my way out the door, there seemed to be a whole bunch leftover, so I figured I would bake some lemon bars and bring them into work.

If you read my previous post on /lemon-bars, you’ll know that I was struggling with the little bubbles on the top of the curd that caused little craters. It made me start formulating other ways to get that pretty storebought finish on top. One of my theories is that the bubbles are caused by the water escaping the curd while it bakes. It shares the same rationale for cutting in cold butter to southern biscuits, and how as they bake, the little layers of butter release steam as the water from the butter escapes, forming those beautiful flaky layers. So, why wouldn’t you take the same approach and cook off the water so that it does not form bubbles?

This lemon bar recipe layers a stovetop lemon curd over the brown butter shortbread crust that I keep using and upcycles the egg whites remaining from the stovetop lemon curd to make this pillowy meringue that complements the tart lemon curd center.

Shout-out to my coworker whose Meyer lemons keep fueling this lemon-everything experimentation! I ended up loving this recipe since the lemon topping set better, making it easier to slice.

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Ingredients

Brown butter shortbread crust

• 227g (1 cup) salted butter, melted and browned

• 100g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar

• 2 tsp vanilla extract

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 265g (2 cups + 2 tbsp) all-purpose flour

Stovetop lemon curd

• 2 large whole eggs

• 4 large egg yolks (save the whites for the meringue topping in a separate dry bowl but make sure none of the yolk gets in)

• 6 Meyer lemons

• 400g (2 cups) granulated sugar

• 172g (12 tbsp) salted butter, softened to room temperature

Meringue

• 4 large egg whites at room temperature (saved and separated from the egg yolks used for the lemon curd)

• 200g (1 cup) granulated sugar

Items

• saucepan for browning the butter

• bain-marie

  • saucepan large enough to hold the heatproof bowl

  • heatproof bowl

• 9”x13” glass baking tray

• parchment paper

Instructions

Preparing

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2. Line the baking tray with parchment paper and set aside.
   I find that measuring to the ends where the “handles” of the pyrex tray is is usually accurate. I leave a bit of an overhang by folding the parchment paper at the corners of the tray. This helps with lifting the finished bars out since I have found that baking it without the parchment paper makes it very difficult to cut then remove the bars.

Brown the butter

1. Place butter in the saucepan.

2. Turn on the heat to medium-high.

3. Swirl the pan. Place the pan back on the heat. And repeat over and over again
   After the butter completely melts, it starts to bubble and boil. Over time it starts to foam, and this is usually when the butter starts browning. Be careful not to let it burn or get burnt. Stop when the butter turns an amber color.

4. Transfer the browned butter into a heat-resistant mixing bowl.

Make the brown butter shortbread crust

1. When the melted butter has cooled, add all the other ingredients into the bowl.

2. Stir until everything is evenly combined.

3. Dump out the mixture into the lined baking tray.

4. Use fingers and press the mixture to form an even crust.

5. Blind bake for 18 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned.

Make the stovetop lemon curd

1. See below on how to set up the bain-marie.

2. Zest 3 lemons into the heatproof mixing bowl.
   Be sure not to get into the white bits of the lemon which can be very bitter.

3. Add eggs, egg yolks, lemon juice of the 6 lemons, and sugar.

4. Whisk until combined.

5. Place the heatproof mixing bowl on top of the saucepan with the simmering water.

6. Whisk constantly until thick then remove the pan from the heat.

7. Cut the butter into small cubes and stir into the curd.

Set up the bain-marie

1. Fill the bottom of the bain-marie with 2 inches of water.

2. Turn the stove on high and bring the water to a boil

3. Once the water begins to boil, reduce the heat to low and keep the water at a steady simmer.

Make the meringue

A scientific explanation and troubleshooting guide of meringue

1. Using a stand mixer with the whisk attachment beat the egg whites on medium until soft peaks form.

2. Add spoonfuls of the sugar every minute or so until all the sugar has been added. The result should be a glossy egg-white mixture with stiff peaks.

Putting everything together

1. Give the lemon curd a final stir and pour over the baked shortbread crust.

2. Bake for 20 minutes. Be careful not to over bake.

3. Spread the meringue mixture on the top of the baked lemon topping. Be sure to cover the entire edge in order to seal the filling in.
   (You can fluff it with the back of a spoon to make decorative peaks or just take the lazy approach and draw a zig-zagging pattern across the top with the flat side of the spatula.)

4. Turn the oven on broil and place the tray back in.

5. Broil for approximately 1-2 minutes or until the meringue topping is adequately brown. Keep an eye on the mixture so that it doesn’t get burnt.

6. Allow the bars to cool to room temperature before sticking them in the refrigerator to cool for at least 2 hours or overnight.

7. Wipe the knife clean between each cut and serve.

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Thoughts

1. I added the meringue as an afterthought, because I realized that I had egg whites leftover after baking the lemon curd bars (#baking-on-whim). But I think a byproduct of that was that the egg whites were not completely fused onto the lemon layer as I would have liked. In the future, if I were to revisit this recipe, I’d probably consider layering the meringue onto the unbaked lemon curd and then throw the whole mixture in the oven for about 15-18 minutes until the meringue was the right degree of brown.

2. The lemon curd top was not covered in craters like the moon!

3. The overall product was very clean and easy to slice unlike previously where it was still a bit sticky and oozy.