A Lemon Slice Experiment

I’ve had a lonely lemon waiting to be used for a little while now. I’ve done the Lemon Magic Cake, and Lemon Delicious, and I wanted to make something that could be added to a lunchbox. Usually I would make muffins or cupcakes, but I decided a slice would be good.

I don’t remember making lemon slice before, so I went to Pinterest for some lovely recipes 😉 But none were exactly what I wanted, although the ones I pinned all had some good features to them. So I set about combining three recipes into one – taking the bits that I wanted and adjusting the rest.

The three recipes I started with were Healthy Lemon Bars, from Foodie Fiasco, Gluten-Free lemon Bars, from The Frugal Farm Wife, and my friend Mimi’s Gluten-Free Citrus Tart, from A Tray of Bliss.

Apart from Mimi’s Citrus Tart I have not made the other recipes, however I would assume they are perfectly good to eat 🙂 We are not gluten-free in this house, if you are it would be best to follow the original recipes. I did not change the recipes because I didn’t like them, more that I found something appealing about each and wanted it all!

So what I ended up with is this:

It’s very tangy, just the way we like it! They got a thumbs up from my son, and we all know if the kids like something then it’s a winner!

Here’s my adapted recipe:

Base

2 cups combined flour and crunched up biscuits/cereal (you know, when you get to the end of a pack and there’s only a couple of broken biccies left, or the crumbs from the bottom of the cereal packet)

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil (I used Rice Bran Oil, use whatever you normally would. You’ll get a slightly different flavour depending on which oil you use)

Topping

4 eggs

1 cup castor sugar

3/4 cup plain yoghurt (natural or Greek)

2T flour

Juice and zest of a large lemon

Method

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C. Line your baking tin with baking paper, leaving enough to hang over the sides so you can lift it out. I used a dish that was 20cm x 28cm.

To crush my biscuits, I put them in the almost empty cereal bag, and bashed it with a rolling pin. The cereal packet is quite strong so this method works well! I used some savoiardi biscuits (sponge finger) that I bought I Don’t Know When to make I Don’t Know What. Use whatever leftover biscuits and cereal you have. You may need to adjust the sugar amount depending on the sweetness of these. If you don’t have any leftover biccies or cereal, just use all flour a la Mimi’s Citrus Tart recipe.

When they were crushed reasonably fine I put them in a bowl and mixed with the sugar and oil. Start with 1/2 cup of oil, but you could need more. If the mix isn’t coming together add oil a tablespoon at a time until it does.

Press your base mix into the baking dish and cook for around 20 minutes, or until it is just golden.

While it is baking, make the topping.

Beat the eggs together with the other ingredients.

When the base is ready, pour the topping over it, and bake for another 25-30 minutes, or until it is just set. As a variation, you can sprinkle shredded coconut over the top. I did this over half to see which we liked best. We prefer it without coconut.

Let it cool before cutting. If you must, you may dust it with icing sugar, but I didn’t (as you can see!)

 I must confess that I used a passionfruit yoghurt because that’s what was in the fridge. I was also aiming for 1 cups worth, but I only had 3/4 cup. There is a hint of passionfruit flavour in my slice. I used a little less than 1 cup of sugar, as my yoghurt was a bit sweeter than if it was plain.

My large lemon gave me 1/2 a cup of juice. I wanted to make sure it was tangy so I added 1/4 cup of bottled lemon juice. The end result was very tangy (which we love) but 1/2 cup of lemon juice would probably be enough for most people.

I was a bit worried that it would taste ‘eggy’ like the Magic Cake did. But it didn’t. Yay!

Would I consider this experiment a success? Yes, I would! I will have to make it again just to check. Lucky we love lemon flavours in this house!

Do you combine or adjust recipes to fit your vision for a dish? How often does it work for you?

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