How Ina Garten Keeps Homemade Lemon Bars From Getting Lumpy

Lemon bars are a classic – if often forgotten – dessert that combines a buttery, flaky crust with a tangy lemon filling. That lemon curd interior separates good lemon bars from absolutely great ones and tastes best when it’s silky smooth. However, the key to achieving the ideal lemon bar texture isn’t just about mixing your ingredients well. Rather, as evidenced by Ina Garten’s recipe, shared by Food Network, the careful and methodical addition of a particular ingredient can make or break the texture of your curd. This ingredient? Flour, which Garten recommends adding slowly to avoid lumps.

Specifically, Garten mixes 1 cup of flour into a whipped mixture of eggs, sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Rather than just pouring the flour into her bowl, Garten slowly incorporates it as the final step of the curd. Garten warns bakers to do the same, as extra care and patience reduces the risk of lumps forming in the curd.

At first glance, flour may seem like such a simple and straightforward ingredient, but it cuts across various baking tips and cooking techniques, whether you’re trying to keep a dessert from sticking to your baking sheet or thickening your favorite sauce. In lemon bars, Garten is careful about how she uses her flour and suggests bakers incorporate it slowly — not only in their lemon bar fillings, but also in the baked good’s shortcrust base.

Ina Garten gradually adds flour to her lemon bar filling and crust

lemon bars close-up – Debbismirnoff/Getty Images

Garten’s lime garnish isn’t the only time her recipe calls for flour. Rather, the Barefoot Contessa’s shortbread-inspired crust also relies on 2 cups of the ingredient, which Garten takes care to mix carefully and — yes — slowly with creamed butter and sugar.

The trick for the smooth base of Garten’s lemon bar is an electric mixer, which ensures a lump-free dessert from base to filling. Garten adds the flour while the electric mixer is already running on low speed. In this way, the flour melts slowly and harmoniously with the butter and sugar, resulting in a harmoniously formed crust.

Of course, this approach may take more time than mixing everything at once, but it reduces pockets of flour in the crust of your lemon bar. Those lumps may be less of a problem in this base than in the dessert topping, but Garten isn’t taking any chances. Goodbye lumpy, uneven lemon bars.

Read the original article on the tasting table.