Healthy Lemon Bars

-->It is part of my daily quest to eat healthily but never sacrifice flavour; and these lemon bars are a perfect example of this. They are gluten and dairy free, use maple syrup instead of sugar and are incredibly easy to make.

I found this recipe when looking through one of my favourite blogs – Green Kitchen Stories, now do yourself a favour and check out this blog right now (well, after you read my post that is) - http://www.greenkitchenstories.com/.

Not only do these guys have a fantastic website/blog full of incredibly healthy and delicious recipes, but they have also recently brought out two new apps for the iPhone (‘Green Kitchen’ is the original app & ‘Desserts’ by Green Kitchen is full of entirely guilt free desserts – so inspiring!).

Looking through the healthy desserts app is what inspired me to make these lemon bars, and I’m so glad I did! I slightly altered the recipe when making them myself by using sunflower oil instead of coconut oil, as it is what I had in the house, and I also added the zest of one lemon, which the recipe didn’t mention. ANYWAY, here is a link to the original recipe - http://www.greenkitchenstories.com/perfect-lemon-coconut-bars/.

What I like most about these bars, is that they taste almost identical to a heavily sugar laden lemon curd slice (which are also delicious, there's no denying that), only these are miles better for you – what could be better? 

 

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Ingredients:

For the Crust –

• 5 tablespoons of sunflower oil - also coconut oil (as the recipe specifies) or any other nut oil would be fine here.
• 3 tablespoons of maple syrup.
• 2 cups of shredded coconut.
• 1 cup of almond meal.
• 1 pinch of salt.
• 2 egg whites (save the yolks for the lemon curd)

For the filling –

• 3 whole eggs + 2 egg yolks.
• 6 tablespoons of maple syrup.
• The juice of 2 lemons.
• The zest of 1 lemon.
• 1/3 cup of almond meal.

Method:

1. Set the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line a 12x8inch baking tray with baking paper.
2. Place the sunflower oil in a medium sized pot and place over a very low heat, don’t allow it to bubble or boil in any way, this process just helps to bind it well with the other base ingredients.
3. Add the maple syrup, shredded coconut, almond meal and salt. Stir around until everything is combined and then remove from the heat.
4. Crack two eggs and set aside the egg yolks for later; and add the whites to the pot while stirring. Keep stirring for about a minute, the mixture should be quite sticky.
5. Pour this mixture into the baking tray and spread and flatten it evenly on the pan, you can use the back of a spoon here, or what is much easier is to use your hands.
6. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes and then remove it from the oven. While this is cooking, start on the lemon curd filling.
7. In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs and 2 remaining egg yolks with an electric whisk until frothy. There is no need to get out heavy machinery here, but if you wish to do so, feel free.
8. Add the rest of the filling ingredients and beat for two more minutes.
9. Pour this mixture on top of the baked base ensuring it is evenly spread atop the crust.
10. Bake in the oven for 16-19 minutes (I took mine out of the oven at 16 minutes) or until edges are light brown and the centre is set.
11. Let it cool until slicing it up into bars. Slice, dust with icing sugar and serve.

This is a seriously delicious and delightfully guilt free treat to have with a cup of tea. Warning: it is extremely easy to inhale large slices of these bars in mere moments – but, who cares?