“Remoted” – Day 174 (Sunday)

Is it Saturday? Is it Sunday? These were today's immediate questions. It took a few minutes to puzzle it out this morning.

Turned out to be Sunday, which was the day for a cookout with Mom and StepDad. There were four of us and I had offered to bring dessert, so the hand mixer and ingredients emerged from the cabinets shortly after the butt crack of dawn. By the time the coffee pot was drained, there was flour and powdered sugar all over the kitchen. And lemon juice. It turns out that hand squeezing lemons is hard on the hands and the juice can go in directions that are neither intended nor desired. The practical brilliance of the many glass juicers of the days of yore seen in antique shops over the decades is now crystal clear. Using lemon juice twice a year probably doesn’t justify dedicating storage space for such a handy tool, so I won’t be running out in search of one. It’s probably why the plastic lemon juice thingy sold at the grocery store was invented.  

Lemon bar crumble?

The lemon bars made for the Independence Day cookout at Mom's were recreated for today’s pre-Labor Day event. It was a blatant attempt to atone for the July driveway incident that involved about a dozen lemon bars becoming intimately acquainted with some pavement while I attempted to carry too many things into the house. At least it happened later in the day and we'd each had one before the unfortunate mishap that sent the rest to the trash bin.

Today’s sophomore batch had less than stellar results. The dough wasn’t pressed down firmly enough and far enough up the sides of the baking dish per the instructions. The shortbread layer didn’t bake to “golden brown on the edges.” It didn’t get golden anything and remained rather anemic after the full bake time, probably because it was a bit too thick on the bottom and not pressed up the sides.

Because the shortbread wasn’t pressed up the sides of the dish the full half inch specified in the recipe, when it was time to pour in the filling before the second bake, there were no lovely golden brown shortbread walls to contain it. The filling layer that should never have been in direct contact with the baking dish got quite brown on the edges. Oops.

Once cooled, frosted, and later cut, the shortbread layer was very crumbly. Probably another consequence of not having been “pressed firmly.” They still taste good, but no bake-offs will be won, no medals or stars awarded with this attempt. At least I didn’t drop them in the driveway, although if a batch deserved such abuse, it was probably this one. The stray crumbs make an excellent ice cream topping, so they aren’t a total loss.

As for today’s lesson, when life gives you lemon for lemon bars, read and follow the directions. All of the directions. Completely. No slacking.