Simple, sunshiney Lemon Blondies

Lemon juice and zest in both the blondies and the glaze give these super easy treats an addictively bright flavor. Recipe below.

Lemon Blondies
Lemon Blondies

FEBRUARY IS NONSENSE. Outside, the 32 inches of snowfall around our house is melting in a depressing, half-assed way; our backyard and gangway are a hell of snow mounds and falling ice. But inside, we have this—this easy little jolt of sunshine.

This quick cake is based on one from the useful, fun blog and vlog Jenny Can Cook. These lemon blondies are just the simplest, nicest little dessert. Or breakfast, with a big cup of black coffee. Or snack, in your hand, while you walk around the house furtively nibbling another piece and saying, “We’ve got to photograph these before we eat them all.”

If, like us, you are a lemon lover, you will appreciate having this in your arsenal. It’s loaded with tangy beautiful lemon flavor—but, unlike classic lemon bars, it is quite low in fat. It comes together in minutes; you make it in one bowl; and it tastes even better and more sunshiney and lemony the day after.

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Lemon Blondies

Lemon juice and zest in both the blondies and the glaze give these super easy treats an addictively bright flavor.
Course Dessert
Servings 1 8x8-inch or 9x9-inch baking pan of blondies

Ingredients

  • 1 cup unbleached white flour, sifted before measuring (or wheat flour—see Kitchen Notes)
  • 2/3 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/4 cup reduced fat sour cream OR plain Greek yogurt, not nonfat
  • 3 tablespoons grapeseed oil, or other neutral vegetable oil
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • zest of 2 lemons

For the glaze:

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • zest of 1 lemon
  • 2 – 4 tablespoons lemon juice

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
  • Lightly oil an 8x8-inch or 9x9-inch baking pan and line it with foil or parchment paper, leaving flaps so you can lift everything out at the end.
  • Sift the flour, measure it, and spoon it into a medium bowl. Then add in all the other batter ingredients. You don’t need to add them in any particular order. Stir everything until it is smooth and uniform—this should take less than a minute.
  • Spread the batter in the baking pan, put in the oven and bake for 18 – 22 minutes depending on your oven. It will be done with a tester poked in the center comes out clean.
  • Cool on a rack for about 10 minutes. Lift out of the pan, using the flaps; set on a serving plate, carefully peeling off the paper. Make the glaze, adding only enough lemon juice to make this spreadable. While the blondies are still warm, spread the glaze on top.
  • That’s it! You’re done. Cut into squares and serve.

Kitchen Notes

What size pan? These blondies, baked in an 8x8-inch pan, will be cakier and softer, while those in a 9x9-inch pan will be slimmer and chewier.
Whole wheat flour? Yes! It will work out fine! Just remember to sift before measuring.
Feeling fancy? Add whipped cream or oh why not candied violets or a little scoop of vanilla ice cream. But, honestly, we like this best on its own.
Liz’s Crockery Corner. I am not sure where I got this little saucer, but I dimly suspect I may have bought it somewhere in mid-Michigan in the 1970s, possibly at a farm auction. A lot of the dishes we have are English transferware, made using an actual pattern (a paper pattern, which would disappear in the manufacturing process) and created some time between 1850 and 1900. This one is older, and the design on it was rendered by stick-spattering, a fairly labor-intensive approach in which a little bit of sponge would be cut into a pattern, then mounted onto a stick, dipped in glaze and stamped onto the pottery, which would then be fired. The glaze is called flow blue because of its tendency to slightly flow and blur in the firing, which seems to enrich the color—the haziness makes it almost glow. We think this is a tea saucer, possibly made in a Dutch or English pottery in the 1820s. At that time, teacups with handles were just starting to come into vogue, and we think that the original long-dead cup that would have gone with this saucer would have been, like all tea cups originally were, a handleless “sipper” or “bowl” cup; this saucer, correspondingly, is deeper and more bowl-like than the tea saucers we are accustomed to today. Finally, this pattern has various names. It falls into the category called brushstroke, which looks kind of like, and sometimes actually is, freehand. In Michigan in the 70s, the collectors I knew called this pattern flower and fern, or fern leaf. Nowadays, collectors seem to prefer calling it spinach leaf, but it will always be flower and fern to me.

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3 thoughts on “Simple, sunshiney Lemon Blondies”

  2. Lemon anything any time!

    This looks like such a nice change from the traditional lemon “loaf.”

    And I adore flow pottery. That’s a beautiful saucer!

    Hang in there ~ you only have another month (or two) of cold and snow.

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