Lemon-Calamansi Crumble Bars

This dish is inspired by The Pioneer Woman’s Creamy Lemon Crumb Squares. Actually, I’ve been thinking of ways to vary this Lemon Pie recipe which was also picked up from The Pioneer Woman. (Oh yes, I love her!) The idea to come up with crumble bars came from hubby who, apparently, loves my Apple Crumble so much. He said why not find a lemon crumble recipe online and try that one out. That was such a great idea. So thanks to hubby and my online best friend, Google, for leading me to The Pioneer Woman’s Creamy Lemon Crumb Squares recipe 🙂

Although I wanted to use all lemons for this dessert, I decided to tweak it a bit by incorporating calamansi. I thought it was a good decision because the calamansi gave the bars a deeper but really nice tangy kick.

The ingredients are pretty simple and easy to find. You’ll just need all purpose flour, salt, baking powder, butter, brown sugar, rolled oats, lemon juice, calamansi juice, lemon zest, and condensed milk.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Melt the butter and mix with brown sugar until well combined. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt and baking powder. Mix the dry ingredients with the butter mixture and mix lightly by hand until they’re crumbly. Add the oats and mix to combine. Press a little more than half the crumbs into the bottom of a 9×13 pan. Set aside.

In another bowl, mix together the condensed milk, lemon juice, calamansi juice and lemon zest. Spread onto the bottom layer of the crumb mixture. Top with the other half of the crumb mixture, but don’t press.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Allow pan to sit on counter for 30 minutes after baking. DO NOT CUT yet or your bars will not form good square shapes. Refrigerate for at least an hour before cutting into squares.

These chewy, chunky, gooey deliciousness are best served cold 🙂

I brought some of these goodies for my officemates (yeah, free taste test) and I went back home with a couple of orders on hand. I haven’t done my costing though so… Chillax, friends 😛

Personally, I really love these lemon-calamansi crumble bars because there’s just the right mix of flavors and textures in one bite. Try it at home, it’s perfect with tea 🙂