Blood Orange Bars
February 10, 2019
Its Valentine’s week, which means my feed (and probably yours) is over run with heart shaped this and chocolate that and pink this. Well — this is me adding 1 more in. If you plan on baking this Valentines day, or at least want to bake something cute to bring into the office like what I’m doing, these blood orange bars are great choice! Blood oranges are in season right now and have that beautiful pinkish-red hue that makes my heart flutter. Its essentially a shortbread cookies + a baked curd, so what can go wrong! If you’ve had lemon bars before, its a very similar taste and feel, but slightly less tart!
Blood Orange Bars
Makes: 16 bars
Prep: 20 minutes
Cook: 40 minutes
Total: 1 hour
Calories per serving: 250 cal
Ingredients
crust
1.5 c (180g) all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp confectioners sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick of butter, cut into pieces
filling
4 eggs
3 egg yolks
3/4 c (170g) granulated sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 c blood orange juice, (or 1/2 blood orange, 1/2 lemon juice)
1.5 Tbsp blood orange zest (from about 2 oranges)
2 Tbsp of butter, cut into pieces
2 Tbsp heavy cream
Directions
Preheat oven to 350, line a 8x8 pan with parchment paper. In a food processor, combine the ingredients for the crust. Pulse until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs and sticks together when you pinch the dough. Press into the pan and bake 15-20 min until golden. Let cool.
While the crust is in the oven, make the curd. Whisk together eggs, yolks, sugar and salt in a medium pot. Add juice and zest, turn on to medium heat and constantly stir for about 10 min until the curd thickens and is a thic puddin like consistency. Whisk in the butter and cream until incorporated. Strain it through a fine-mesh strainer into a bowl to get rid of cooked egg clumps. Pour into crust and cook 25-30 min until filling is set and not very wobbly. Some wobble is fine.
Cool for an hour on rack. Then put in the fridge for 2-3 hrs or overnight. Cut into squares and liberally sift powdered sugar on top.
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