Lemon Brownies

Have you noticed the ridiculous amount of lemons that I've been using for No Butter Baking? Well, it's because I have a friend who always give me fresh lemons from his lemon tree! Since I'm not too familiar baking with lemons I followed the generic cookies, lemon bars, lemon cake, etc. but I wanted something different - which led me to baking Lemon Brownies. Now, these are "brownies" but obviously, there are no specks of chocolate in this recipe, which may confuse some people. When I baked these for my family, they were like "These aren't brownies!!" So I like to describe them as "lemon desserts that have dense texture like brownies" - which I won't use for the actual name because it's too long! Anyway, these lemon brownies are literally just like brownies without the chocolate. It's not too rich but the right "dense" like brownies. I hope you enjoy them!

Lemon Brownies
Servings: 16 with corners, 10 without corners

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cups flour 
• 1/2 cup sugar 
• 1/4 teaspoons salt 
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil 
• 2 eggs 
• 2 Tablespoons lemon juice 
• Lemon zest (whole lemon) 

Glaze: 

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar 
• 3 TBS lemon juice 

Instructions: 

• Preheat oven at 350°F
• In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, and salt. 
• In that same bowl, mix in the oil. 
• In a medium bowl mix eggs, lemons juice and zest and add to large bowl. 
• Pour the batter into a brownie pan (approximately 8x8)
• Bake for about 25 minutes. (Make sure you check with a toothpick that it's completely baked!) 
• In the meantime while waiting for the batter to bake, make the glaze by just combining the two ingredients. Pour the glaze once the brownies are cooled. 

As mentioned at the top, depending on whether you want to remove the edges or keep them, the serving size will change. For presentation purposes I cut the edges off before I gave them to my friends and family (which means I obviously at the edges which so happens to be my favorite part of brownies!) 

About to go into the oven!

Before the glaze

After the glaze

What I particularly like about this simple glaze is that once you let it sit for a bit on top of the lemon brownies, it starts to harden which I think is brilliant because then you won't spill icing/glaze all over you while you eat it. I've tried making glaze using water or soy milk but it always end up being a little runny. But this one is absolutely perfect - I think I found my "go-to" glaze recipe that I can use from now on :)

I'm hoping that I can come across more baking recipes using lemons - because I subtly requested that I wanted more lemons to my friend ;) I hope he got my hint! 

With that being said, from my kitchen to yours, Happy Baking! 

Smiles, 

Mei