Nana’s Famous Lemon Squares Recipe (1/2)

Nana makes her famous lemon square recipe with a sweet cookie crust and tart lemon filling. Mmm!

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Please watch: “Lattice Crust (Blueberry Pie): Nana’s Cookery Tips & Tricks”
➨ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_57PJS9Pbmc
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Hi I’m Gloria Donahue welcome or welcome back to Nana’s cookery my grandchildren have gotten me involved in showing the world the things I’ve been making for years I’m not sure whether they want to improve their skills or just want more desserts but again we’re going to go with it

Today we’re going to make lemon squares and if you go on the internet you’ll see plenty of recipes for it for lemon squares but I think mine is a little different and I hope you’ll consider it lemon squares are a very popular thing in my house I first had them almost 40

Years ago when I moved to this house at and there was a newcomers group and I had them and we enjoyed them and some of those ladies are still some of my best friends few years later I joined a sweet Adeline chorus and entered that lemon squares in

A fundraising cookbook and made them for years with that group most recently I made them as part of a dessert buffet for both my 50th high school reunion and my 55th so you can see I enjoy baking and I enjoy sharing and food may be gone in five minutes but the memory remains

My lemon squares are a little different in this regard if you notice when you make lemon squares if you have that when you’re done there’s kind of a little brown thing around the edge and the reason for that is as the crust bakes it comes out a little bit from the pan and

When you pour in the lemon filling then and it bakes it’s kind of unsightly around the edges and I think kind of hard to get out so only after about thirty years I came up with what I thought was a better idea and that is taking the pan and making a foil insert

For this recipe which is a two-part recipe of cookie crust and a lemon filling you’re going to need for the first part let me tell you I’m only doing half a recipe in an 8 inch square pan you could easily double it for a 9

By 13 you can do the same with any 8 inch or 9 by 13 in my opinion you can have it or double it from the 1 size to the other you’re going to need 1 cup of flour 1/4 cup of 10x or confectioners sugar and one stick of butter for the first

Part of this recipe for the second part you’re going to need two eggs a cup of sugar almost three tablespoons of lemon juice lemon rind if you’ve used a real lemon 2 tablespoons of flour 1/4 of a teaspoon of baking powder you’re going to be baking all of this at 350 the

First part for approximately 20 minutes but since we’ve cut the recipe in half we’ll have to check on it sooner and the same with the second half which is 30 minutes I’m reading the recipe from a card because honestly the cookbook that it’s in is so disreputable I’m ashamed

To show it on television but let’s start this is a nice 8-inch square metal pan very useful if you’re not using it for baking you can also use it for casseroles it holds two ports so it’s a great choice for anything using 240 I’m going to take foil if you have

Heavy-duty foil you could rip that item I have just the regular oil and I find that if you do it on the outside it will fit in the inside easier and if you do it when the inside first you’ll see what I mean when I put it in you don’t get

All those terrible creases in the corner it just fits in much more neatly the other thing I do different with my lemons fritters is I don’t use a mixer I use a processor now if you don’t have a processor it certainly can be done in the mixer and in that case start with

Soft butter if you’re using the processor I take it right out of the refrigerator because I actually like to cut that butter in firm and then and then process it till it’s until it’s a cookie dough but you could make the exact recipe just using a mixer start by

Creaming your butter and then slowly do the other things again another workhorse the processor all the time I’ll tell you a story about that later well I’ll tell you well while I’m getting my things in I was doing a desert party years and years ago in the

70s and my husband came with a box and said here’s an arbor Day present it’s a processor which I’d only heard about never actually seen and I said oh oh okay oh well when I’m all done this when we’re done with a party all I’ll pay attention to it

Well I stopped at about midnight to have a cup of tea and piece of toast while I was doing things and pretty soon I was chopping nuts I was just doing everything with it that night so it’s been a wonderful thing for me I certainly have enjoyed it I put a cup of

Flour in the processor now I’m going to put a quarter of a cup of confectioner’s sugar in the processor make sure when you close up your confectioner sugar you close it very tight because air will make it hard that’s also the same with brown sugar they want to be close really

Tight I’m going to put the lid on and the processor is either on or pulse so I’m just going to pulse and that’s just to get the flour and the and the sugar together now I’m going to cut the butter into smaller pieces and that’s because

It’ll cut in easier and I’m going to put it in and then I’m going to give it a few pulses again I don’t want all the butter to stick to itself then you’ve got big globs of butter I just use regular salted butter if you prefer

Sweet butter you can do that and then just add a little salt we’re just going to put this in now we’re gonna let her rip I push down every once in a while as you see sometimes the flower holds one to the top there now I’m just gonna let her

Go on and what’s gonna happen is it’s cutting an old ax butter but now it’s going to mix it all in and you’re fine it’s it’s gonna make a go and that dough is gonna come away from the night I take the knife out now I’ve got my dough and

It’s going to come out really and you can see it couldn’t be quicker and this is a sugar dough this is like a shortbread dough it’s just butter flour and 10x when you’re putting any base in a pan try to put it in in sort of blobs

All over so you’re not going to have to spread too much rather than put it all in and then try to spread it so I’m just going to do it like this and I’m just going to use my hands to press it in I have always joked there’s something

Else that I make a lot cold almond butter crunch and I’m gonna do that in another video and I’ve always said if I knew when I was going to die I would make lemon squares and almond butter crunch and there would be a great turnout at the funeral otherwise I’m not

Sure so we’re just going to press remember if you’re baking with a new Baker that’s probably a trial a kid do it but just allow enough extra time the tendency is when you’re doing it to do it really quickly new bakers need more time and you need to give them more time

The experience will be good for you and good for them if something takes you 20 minutes to say no it’s going to take me an hour today but by the end of that hour they will have learned a skill and in the end you’ll benefit from it because I just

Heard from my niece her daughter is making pie crust making been off the pie she’s become a baker so that’s a wonderful thing we’re going to take this very simple crust and we’re going to put it in the oven and we’re going to bake it at 350 for 20 minutes

My other hobby counted cross stitch