Butter Crunch Lemon-Cheese Bars

I never realized this about myself...I really like lemon desserts.  Today's is no exception.  I was looking for a recipe to take to a friend's house in Philly and I wanted to make something 1) portable and 2) that felt summer-y and 3) that used up the cottage cheese I needed for another recipe. I hate cottage cheese so it was great to be able to use it in something instead of wasting it.  It didn't hurt that 19 people also gave this an average rating of 5 out of 5 (I seem to be finding highly rated recipes lately).  

I was worried about the crust; when I baked this (in the toaster oven) the crust came out really hard and brown. I tried a piece and thought it was really dry.  But then I thought since the finished product sits overnight that some of the moisture must be soaked up by the crust. I was right!

I used nutmeg instead of mace given the reviewers' comments and I used fat-free cottage cheese which I had instead of 1% cottage cheese. Other than those two changes, we made no other changes to this recipe. I also got to use my new microplane which is freaking incredible at zesting lemon (THANK YOU CARY)!

I had a hard time getting the bars out of the pan once they chilled overnight and I left some knife marks in my pan. So next time, I may do like another reviewer recommended and put parchment paper at the bottom of the pan.  Be sure to keep 'em chilled.

Please make this--you won't regret it!

Recipe by Greg Patent, Cooking Light, January 2001

Yield: 8 servings (serving size: 1 bar)

Ingredients

• CRUST:
• 1/3  cup  butter, softened
• 1/4  cup  packed dark brown sugar
• 1/4  teaspoon  salt
• 1/4  teaspoon  ground mace or nutmeg
• 1  cup  all-purpose flour
• Cooking spray
• 
  FILLING:
• 1  cup  1% low-fat cottage cheese
• 1  cup  granulated sugar
• 2  tablespoons  all-purpose flour
• 1  tablespoon  grated lemon rind
• 3 1/2  tablespoons  fresh lemon juice
• 1/4  teaspoon  baking powder
• 1  large egg
• 1  large egg white

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°.

To prepare crust, place first 4 ingredients in a large bowl, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth. Lightly spoon 1 cup flour into a dry measuring cup, and level with a knife. Add 1 cup flour to butter mixture, and beat at low speed until well-blended. Press crust into an 8-inch square baking pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes.

To prepare filling, place cottage cheese in a food processor; process 2 minutes or until smooth, scraping sides of bowl once. Add 1 cup granulated sugar and remaining ingredients, and process until well-blended. Pour filling over crust. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until set (the edges will get lightly browned), and cool. Cover and chill for 8 hours.

Nutritional Information

Calories:

281 (29% from fat)

Fat:

9g (sat 5.2g,mono 2.6g,poly 0.6g)

Protein:

6.7g

Carbohydrate:

44.5g

Fiber:

0.5g

Cholesterol:

49mg

Iron:

1.1mg

Sodium:

298mg

Calcium:

40mg