Lemon Brownies – A Delicious Dichotomy

Lemon brownies? Say what, now? How could that be? They are not brown, but they do have the whole lemon thing going for them, so I thought it would be worth a try. The photo on Pinterest looks like this:

Ingredients

Zest from 2 lemons (Depending on how deep your lemon love runs, you can use more or less lemon zest.) 
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 room temperature eggs
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice 
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (that’s 2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

Glaze

1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
Zest from 1 lemon

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a 9×13-inch baking pan with foil, leaving a slight overhang along the edges. Lightly butter the foil.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the lemon zest and granulated sugar. Use your fingertips to rub the lemon zest into the sugar until moist and fragrant; Set aside.
In separate, small bowl, combine the eggs, almond extract, and lemon juice. Whisk to combine; Set aside.
Add the flour, salt, and melted butter to the lemon/sugar mixture. Whisk until well combined. Add the egg mixture and mix until smooth.
Spread the batter into prepared pan.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the center is set and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Remove the pan from the oven and place it on a cooling rack. Cool completely before adding the glaze.

For the glaze: In a medium-size bowl, combine the confectioners’ sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Whisk until smooth. 
Pour the glaze over the cooled brownies (if needed, use a small off-set spatula to spread it around the entire pan). 
Use the foil overhang to remove the brownies from the pan. Cut into squares or rectangles, and serve.

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First, I prepped the pan. I wasn’t sure about the whole foil idea, so I went with parchment paper, adding a bit of non-stick spray to the pan to keep it in place. This turned out to be a little greasy on the bottom, but it worked.

Next, I melted the butter and set it to cool.

Then I zested the lemons,

and added them to the sugar. There were a lot of confusing directions about bowls in this recipe. First I put this in the mixer’s bowl, but then it seemed like I wasn’t supposed to, so I moved it to a glass bowl, but eventually figured out that the original mixer bowl was okay.

I mixed the sugar and lemon together until it was kind of moon-sandy, with lots of little clumps in there.

Next, the eggs were whisked with lemon juice and a little almond extract.

The flour was added to the sugar/lemon mixture.

When combined, it was even more moon-sandy.

And then I mixed in the egg mixture to get a nice smooth batter.

The batter was very thick, so I spread it evenly in the pan with a spatula.

Then it baked for 30 minutes ate 350 degrees

I removed it from the pan and let it cool on a rack.

Next it was time to make the glaze, but you know what? Between that and the chicken I made for dinner (recipe coming next week) I was all out of lemons. When life doesn’t give you lemons, what do you do? Well, I use a little corn syrup and lemon extract.

My recipe:

1/2 teaspoon of lemon extract
1/4 cup milk
3 tbsp corn syrup
1 1/3 cups of confectioner's sugar

Which were all whisked together and poured over the top of the “brownies”.

The result was delicious, and as the original blogger said, would go well with coffee or tea. What makes them brownies? Well, they kind of have the consistency of fudgy brownies. I was a little disappointed with the thickness of mine, and I wonder if perhaps a little baking powder might make them a bit airier. Not saying I would change a thing, because they are delicious. They’re kind of like lemon bars, I guess. The term “brownie” is a bit of a misnomer, but the lemon part is just right.