Dairy-free Lemon Bars with Raspberry Sauce #dairyfree

We've started a Dinner Club with some friends and for our last dinner party in June we made some Lemon Bars with Raspberry Sauce to help start the summer!

I found I have the Cook's Illustrated Best Recipe Cookbook and am really enjoying it because they discuss all the trials they went through to get the best recipe they can.  Perfect for Foodie Nerds!  Luckily they had a lemon bar recipe in there so we started with that as our base and then just had to adapt it to be Dairy Free for me. 

Start by making the crust - for a 13x9 pan I had to make a bit extra, but I also like a thicker bottom than the 1/4 inch thick they suggested.  Using the food processor here makes it so easy!  

Prep your pan - grease it, then lay a strip of parchment paper so it goes up the two sides, then dot it with butter and lay a second strip the opposite way so the other two empty sides get covered too.  (We messed this up... it still works, you just want to make sure things don't stick to the pan.)

Source

1.5x recipe

2.62 cups all-purpose flour (2-1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons)

1 cup powdered sugar

3/8 cup cornstarch

1 tsp salt

18 tablespoons Earth Balance vegan butter

Pulse the dry ingredients a few times, then add the vegan butter and quickly blend (10 seconds) then pulse until it's all pale yellow and looks like coarse cornmeal.  Sprinkle into the pan and press the bottom to your desired thickness and then up the sides about a half inch.  Refrigerate for 30 minutes, preheat the oven to 350º halfway through that (or however long your oven takes to preheat), then bake for 20 minutes until golden brown.  Because mine was thicker, it took longer to bake, about 35 minutes.  While it's baking, make the filling.

6 large eggs, beaten

2 cups sugar

4.5 Tablespoons all-purpose flour (a 1.5 T measuring spoon is great here!)

3 rounded teaspoons lemon zest

1 cup lemon juice (took 5 lemons)

2/3 cup soy milk

1/4 tsp salt

Whisk eggs, sugar and flour together, then stir in lemon zest, juice, milk and salt and blend well.   Pour into the warm crust, reset the oven to 325º and then bake for about 20 minutes until it feels firm on top.  Cool on the counter and then lift out with the parchment paper and slice.

We had extra filling so I poured it into a bread pan - wrong container.  It took forever to bake, the bars with the crust ended up taking about 30 minutes, then it took an extra 15 for the bread pan.  Should have used a 9x9 so that it would be a similar depth to the 13x9 pan.

For a topping, we sprinkled it with some extra powdered sugar (which melted by the time we arrived, whoops!), scattered some fresh raspberries, and made a raspberry sauce from The Gunny Sack.  

1/4 cup water
1.5 containers of fresh raspberries
1/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tbsp cold water
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp vanilla
dash of salt

Put everything minus the vanilla and salt into a small sauce pan, cook over medium heat for about 5-7 minutes and stir occasionally so the raspberries start to break down.  It was a bit thicker than I wanted so next time I would skip the cornstarch, but if you wanted to add it you would mix the cornstarch and cold water together, then pour in and continue to cook until it's thickened.  Once finished, remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and salt.   Allow it to cool a bit, then put in a container for transport or storage.

These were delicious, and the leftover curd was a delightful addition.

Enjoy!