Crystal Palace Lemon Bars – Walt Disney World Recipe
Crystal Palace Lemon Bars (Sort of)…
My attempt to make the lemon bars from the Crystal Palace was quite the adventure. While dining at the restaurant for lunch and dinner, you may be lucky enough to find their delicious lemon bars on the buffet…
I love a good, tart lemon bar, so I was excited when I found that someone on the internet had been given the recipe from their server at the Crystal Palace. However, I looked at the recipe with skepticism, because it sounded a bit off… but if it was from the actual recipe from the restaurant it had to be right, right? Well, part of this blog is to show my failures at cooking Disney recipes and this was one big failure. The bars’ crust seemed ok, but the filling was weird. It called for a ton of butter, which just melted down in the oven. It was a big, liquidy-oily mess and never transformed into yummy lemon bars.
Oh no….
But now I had a hankering for lemon bars, so I found a promising recipe by Barefoot Contessa, which I will demonstrate here.
Here are the ingredients.
First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light. Then, with the mixer on low, add the flour and salt until just combined.
Scoop the dough out onto a floured board and (with floured hands) press it into a 9x13x2 inch baking sheet. Then chill for 15 minutes. Since I was baking in a glass dish, and I worry about putting a chilled dish into a preheated oven, I chilled the dough ball for 15 minutes first, and then pressed the dough into the dish and put it into the oven.
Bake the crust for 15 – 20 minutes, or until lightly browned. Let cool.
In the meantime, make the filling. Wait until the crust is already cooled to start the filling because if you mix the lemon and the eggs too early, the mixture could start to curdle.
Whisk together the eggs and sugar…
Then add the lemon zest…
Then the lemon juice…
… and the flour.
Pour the lemon mixture over the cooled crust and bake for 30-35 minutes, until set.
Let cool and then dust with confectioners’ sugar.
Then you can enjoy your delicious sweet and sour treat… yum!
These are even better once chilled for a bit, since they set up and the filling gets a bit more firm.
This recipe states that it is 12 servings, but I think 24 is more realistic… they are very good, but very rich. The smaller serving is just enough.
This lemon bar recipe didn’t exactly recreate the bars at the Crystal Palace (the shortbread crust was similar, but the filling was a bit softer and had a stronger lemon flavor), but it is a good recipe when you have a craving for a lemon bar.
Do you like lemon desserts or do you prefer chocolate desserts?
- 1/2 pound unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 cups flour
- 1/8 tsp kosher salt
- 6 large eggs, room temperature
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- 2 tbs grated lemon zest (about 6 lemons)
- 1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 cup flour
- Confectioners' sugar
- First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light. Then, with the mixer on low, add the flour and salt until just combined.
- Scoop the dough out onto a floured board and (with floured hands) press it into a 9x13x2 inch baking sheet. Then chill for 15 minutes. Since I was baking in a glass dish, and I worry about putting a chilled dish into a preheated oven, I chilled the dough ball for 15 minutes first, and then pressed the dough into the dish and put it into the oven.
- Bake the crust for 15 - 20 minutes, or until lightly browned. Let cool.
- In the meantime, make the filling.
- Whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice and flour. Pour over the cooled crust and bake for 30-35 minutes, until set. Let cool and then dust with confectioners' sugar.
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