Key Lime Bars

posted on August 11, 2013

Key Lime Bars are a buttery, flakey crust topped with a deliciously sweet, citrusy key lime filling and powdered sugar.  The crust to filling ratio is perfect, they’re easy to make, and they’re a huge crowd pleaser!  You just can’t beat that.

key lime pie bars

I just got home from the Tahoe area, and I’ve got a bit of a traffic hangover.  It took 4 hours to get home, when it normally takes 2 1/2.  I have zero tolerance when it comes to bumper to bumper traffic. The only thing that kept me sane was my satellite radio, entertaining my ears with the likes of Nickelback, Pitbull, Justin Timberlake, and my girl P!nk.  Thank you, Siruis XM, and ROCK ON.   🙂

key lime pie bars

While I was away, my new blog design was rolled out.  It’s still in progress, but it’s very exciting for me!  I went with Zesty Blog Consulting after months of fumbling around on my own trying to figure out how to do this and how to do that.  I guess I did pretty well considering I had no experience with blogging and was far from being social media savvy.  I decided I wanted to pay someone to deal with everything so that I could focus on the food, photography, and blogging end of things more.  I didn’t want to drop thousands of dollars (gulp!), and I found Zesty Blogs to be quite reasonable for everything that was included, and Cory is very knowledgeable and helpful.  Zesty Blogs does include a logo in the redesign price in the package that I selected, but I had already enlisted the help of my good friend Colleen at Dillon Designs, so she created my lovely logo for me.  Thank you, Colleen!  I appreciate your patience going back and forth, back and forth with me on the design.  You’re the best!   😀

key lime pie bars

Now that I got through some of that important business, let’s talk Key Lime Bars.  It’s no secret that I love, love, love key lime anything.  It doesn’t matter if it’s  Key Lime Pie with Meringue Whipped Cream, Coconut Key Lime Pie Smoothies, or my Fresh Key Lime Greek Yogurt Dip, it doesn’t get much better than key lime flavor for me.

key lime pie bars

I made these bars for my good friend that was visiting from Switzerland.  She always brings me Swiss chocolate, and I always make her lemon bars.  Yes, I said lemon.  This visit, I had fresh key lime juice in my fridge, so I asked her if I could use that instead of lemon.  She’d never had a key lime dessert before, so it was time to introduce her!  The funny thing is, the key lime flavor wasn’t very pronounced.  In fact, if I hadn’t have told anyone that they were key lime bars, they wouldn’t have known.  Next time, I may scale back on the sugar in the key lime filling by 1/4 cup and see if the key lime flavor comes through more.  These bars were perfect, however, so I’d completely be messing with perfection.  I just might have to leave them exactly as they are.  😉

key lime pie bars

Key Lime Bars
 
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Key Lime Bars are a buttery, flakey crust topped with a deliciously sweet, citrusy key lime filling and powdered sugar. The crust to filling ratio is perfect, they're easy to make, and they're a huge crowd pleaser! You just can't beat that.
Serves: 16-20 bars
Ingredients
Crust:
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • ½ cup powdered sugar
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • pinch of salt
Filling:
  • 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 6 tablespoons all purpose flour
  • ¼ cup + 2 tablespoons key lime juice
  • 1 tablespoon key lime zest
  • powdered sugar, for garnish
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9x13" baking pan generously with cooking spray.
Prepare the crust:
  1. In a large bowl, beat the butter and ½ cup powdered sugar till light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add flour and salt, and beat on low speed until just incorporated, about 1 minute more. Press the dough evenly into the prepared pan and bake on the middle rack of the oven 20-25 minutes, or until lightly golden. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.
Prepare the filling:
  1. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs and 2 cups of sugar. Add the flour and whisk until combined. Whisk in the lime juice and zest. Pour over the cooled crust, and bake 25 minutes longer, or until the filling has set. Cool completely on a wire rack. Dust with sifted powdered sugar once cooled, and cut into squares. Enjoy!
Notes
You can easily substitute the key lime juice with lemon or regular lime.

Recipe adapted from Pat & Gina Neely's Lime Bars.

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