Healthy & Delicious Lemon Bar Recipe

                                                          source

I’ve adapted this recipe from the Gluten-Free Almond Flour cookbook by Elana Amsterdam. I bought the book awhile back and this is one of my favorite recipes so far. However, she uses Agave nectar for most of the sweetening and we’ve opted out of that because of the high fructose content. Today, I’m making my bars with Lime juice and using a new to me sweetener Madhava Organic Coconut Sugar (blonde), which I picked up at the health food store. You could certainly use honey or xylitol or stevia. All healthful alternatives.

They’ve come out of the oven and I tasted them while they were still warm. Let’s just say I could eat the whole pan before they chill. But I won’t…really…ok maybe.

Here’s the recipe. If you don’t have any Almond Flour, grind up some plain almonds in your food processor until they are a fine consistency. It works well in this recipe.

Crust

1 1/2 cups blanched almond flour (or see note above)

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp oil (grapeseed, olive, coconut, etc)

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp vanilla extract

Topping

1/4 cup oil

1/4 cup honey (or 1/2 cup coconut sugar or xylitol ) I’ve used powdered Stevia but they come out quite tart. Still good though!

3 large eggs

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (or lime)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 inch square baking dish with oil.

To make the crust, combine all of the crust ingredients until thoroughly combined and press dough into the bottom of baking dish. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, until lightly browned.

While the crust bakes, in a blender (or food processor) combine all of the topping ingredients and process on high.

Remove crust from the oven and pour topping evenly over the hot crust.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until the topping is golden brown. Let cool in the baking dish for about 30 minutes and then refrigerate for 2 hours to set. (if they make it that far!) Cut into bars and serve.                                                     

Delicious with a cup of hot, green tea. Let me know if you try it. Happy New Year!

Tanya

Linking up with Lisa at Sweet As Sugar Cookies! Go check out more yummy recipes.