When Life Hands You A Screaming Toddler, Make Strawberry Lime Bars

Sammy screamed for 2 hours last night, starting at 4 am (after screaming for an hour upon being put to bed). Weren’t we supposed to be done with this after the first 12 months of her life? I know some of you who know us are probably thinking karma—after all, Sammy was unnaturally good as a baby. She cried maybe twice her entire first year upon being put to bed.

She is making up for it now.

I keep telling myself that moving and getting kicked out of your crib is a lot for a 21 month old. But John is about to go out of town for a conference and I don’t mind telling you I am dreading it.

So said exhaustion is a nice seagueway into this next recipe because I was of 2 minds about whether to share it. The flavor was amazing. And my sister had great success with the recipe. So I am pretty sure the ridiculously gooey texture was cook’s error. First, and let’s blame fatigue shall we?, I don’t think I pressed the crust into the pan evenly enough, leading some pieces to not hold together very well at all. Second, and this was more bad luck I think, my custard, when it thickened, thickened fast, and I think I may have thickened it too much. It was practically set before I put it into the pan. Since the instructions said to remove when the filling was set, I took it out a minute or so early—I think maybe it needed to cook more. I could not even remotely slice it cleanly.

But oh my was it good. So I still recommend you try the recipe.

I originally found the recipe on both my sister’s blog, 2 Dogs And A Girl , and on the Cooking Light Bulletin Board, where she posted a review of it . However, my sister got the recipe from Eggs On Sunday, which I also read. Which makes this I guess a triple contender for Bookmarked Recipes, so I am sending this over to Ruth at Ruth’s Kitchen Experiments.

Strawberry Lime Bars (Previous people’s versions include Strawberry Lemon and Blueberry Lime Bars)

Adapted originally from Delicious Fruit Desserts by Dot Vartan

Ingredients

For the crust
1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup confectioner’s sugar
1 stick (8 T) butter, softened

For the filling
3 egg yolks
zest of 1 lemon (I used the zest of 1 ½ limes plus some lime oil as my zester was not working well)
¼ cup lemon juice (I used lime juice)
½ cup milk (I used whole)
½ cup sugar
3 T flour
¼ t salt
¾ cup fresh diced strawberries (I used heaping ¾ cup)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment to beat the flour, confectioner’s sugar, and butter together at medium speed until blended. Press the dough firmly into the bottom and 1/2-inch up the sides of an 8×8 baking pan. Bake for 20 minutes, or just until turning golden brown. Remove and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, lemon zest, lemon juice, and milk. In a separate small bowl, stir together the flour, sugar and salt. Add the flour mixture to the egg yolk mixture and whisk until combined. Pour into a small saucepan and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until it gets thick and the whisk leaves a trail, about 5 minutes. (This is where I think I let it go too far—it started thickening at about the 8 minute mark and was super thick within the next 30 seconds.) Remove the lemon custard from the heat and set aside. I found something to do for about 15 minutes to let it cool down a bit—not sure if it was necessary.

Add the diced strawberries to the lemon custard and stir gently just to combine. Pour the custard onto the crust, spread it out evenly in the pan with a silicone spatula, and bake for 25-30 minutes, until the filling is set.

Cool completely before cutting into squares. You can dust them with confectioner’s sugar if you like, but I like to leave them as is so you can see the pretty ruby red bursts of strawberry.