If you’re reading or watching Lemony Snicket’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” of course you need to eat lemon bars.
Why lemon bars? Because as you drown your sorrows in the fates of the three Baudelaire orphans – Violet, Klaus, and Sunny – you will need sweetness to balance the sadness. In fact, Lemony Snicket’s dreadful books contain so much misery and suffering that many readers (and viewers of the Netflix series based on the book) have wished they had chosen another path.
But if you choose to continue on this most sorrowful journey, you should probably nourish yourself with some sort of food. That food should be comforting, yet remind you of the sour experiences that these characters have endured.
Lemony Lemon Bars
Enter these Lemony Lemon Bars. These tangy-sweet bar cookie have just enough mouth-puckering lemon flavor to remind you that this is not a rainbows-and-lollipops world we’re living in.
Be forewarned that when we wrote this post, we endured several calamities. We got distracted while cooking the first batch and forgot to put in the sugar altogether. This yielded an extremely lemony and not especially tasty cookie bar. That kind of bar would be highly appropriate for this story, and yet it is not recommended as a delicious treat.
Second, we mysteriously loosened the top of the powdered sugar shaker on the second batch. This resulted in inadvertently dumping an entire mountain of powdered sugar on top of said bars.
Will these calamities befall you while you make these lemon bars? We think we have since absorbed all of the bad luck of the Beaudelaires, so you should be safe.
Lemony Lemon Bars for Lemony Snicket
Ingredients
- 1 cup sifted flour
- 1/4 cup powdered sugar
- 1/2 cup butter chilled
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 T. additional flour
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 3 eggs well beaten
- 1/2 cup lemon juice
- Additional powdered sugar for sprinkling
Instructions
-
Sift the flour and powdered sugar into a medium bowl. Cut in the butter using a pastry blender until only small pea-sized pieces of butter remain. Press mixture firmly into 9x9 inch or 7x11 inch baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.
-
Meanwhile, combine the sugar, 2 T. flour, and baking powder in a medium bowl. Add eggs and lemon juice, and stir to combine. Pour over baked crust and return to oven. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until knife inserted halfway in center comes out clean. Cool before cutting into squares.
Like it? Pin it!
P.S. Looking for more tangy deliciousness to enjoy with Lemony Snicket? Try these Lemon-Honey Springerle Cookies or these Buddha’s Hand Lemon Drop Cookies.
Blogger disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to our Amazon affiliate account.
Hi! I'm Jeanne Fratello - a writer, reporter, and food enthusiast who is on a mission to write great stories about food and where your food comes from.
What a wonderful post. Now I simply must watch ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ while baking something. I can’t wait to see what mayhem will proceed.
Lemon squares are seriously one of my childhood favorites! Yum.
Me too! Thanks for stopping by, Living Charm!