November’s Featured Recipe: Bombchu Lemon Bars!

November’s Featured Recipe is here at last! You voted; I experimented in the kitchen. I’m proud to say that with a little patience and perseverance we were able to create something really unique! This week’s recipe:  Bombchu Lemon Bars from Legend of Zelda! Yes, those little explosive mouse-like thingies. Are they not adorable?

This recipe comes in three parts: a buttery, slightly sweet shortbread, creamy and sour lemon curd, and complementing ABC (apple, blueberry, cinnamon) fruit leather. All from scratch, all in less than 24 hours. Cut me a little slack, fruit leather takes forever to dehydrate!

Look at the tails. LOOK AT THEM. Are you ready for this? Too late, let’s go.

Gamers, grab your mats:

CRUST:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature

From Baking Bites.

LEMON CURD:

• 1 cup fresh lemon juice (about 4-6 lemons; don’t try to skimp and use the stuff in the plastic squeeze bottle. It’s nasty and you will hate yourself for even thinking about using it.)
• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into two chunks
• 2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 eggs + two egg yolks
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

From Fine Cooking.

ABC FRUIT LEATHER:

• 2 cups applesauce (try to get the ‘least watery’ brand you can find. I don’t know which brand that would be, but it’s not Mott’s.)
• 1 cup frozen blueberries
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

From Life in the Van.

• Maraschino cherries and lemon peel, for decoration.

Nope, I don’t know how the honey made it in there.

Preheat oven to 350° F. Line a 9″x9″ square baking pan with aluminum foil or parchment paper. We had to get cheap-ass wimpy foil so I decided to play it safe with parchment. Zest lemons, enough for a tablespoonful. That’s about two lemons. Don’t lose finger-flesh in the grater thing.

Hey, I’m nothing if not helpful.

Whisk flour, sugar, salt, and zest together in a large bowl. Unless you believe in less dishes and a bigger mess. Then use a small bowl. Cut butter into chunks and add to flour mixture.

Rule of thumb: Cut butter into tablespoons, then quarter those slices. Perfect.

Blend with your electric hand mixer on low until mixture forms coarse, sandy crumbs. Like this:

You can’t see it, but I really made such a mess. >_>

Dump contents of bowl into lined pan and press crumbs down into an even layer. Use fingers, a spoon, the base of a cup, whatever gets the crumbs packed down tightly.

Note: This made kind of a thick base.

Bake crust for 16-20 minutes, until edges are just lightly browned.

Next, lemon curd. Yes, you can easily put this together while the crust is in the oven. Rather convenient, really. Put lemon juice, butter, and heavy cream into a medium saucepan and heat until almost boiling. The butter should be melted. Remove from heat and whisk a bit.

Before cooking. Run your lemon juice through a fine sieve to remove any seeds, if you have them. I ran mine through twice.

Whisk eggs, yolks, and sugar together in a medium bowl until well combined.

There’s really something therapeutic about beating the shit out of a bunch of eggs. Don’t ask me.

Whisk a bit of the hot lemon liquid into the yolk mixture. Gradually add more liquid to the yolks until they’re all combined. This technique prevents your eggs from overheating and doing nasty things.

Action shot!

Pour liquid back into your saucepan and crank the burner to medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Scrape the bottom and sides to keep eggs from scrambling. Cook until lemon curd coats the wooden spoon thickly enough to leave a clear line when you draw your finger through it; around 5-8 minutes. Once it sets up, it sets up rather quickly.

Should be a bit thick and look like this.

Remove curd from heat and pour through a fine sieve (hey Luna, guess what I finally bought?). Stir in salt and vanilla.

It’s hard not to taste questionably cooked eggs.

Pour lemon curd over baked crust and smooth with a spoon or spatula if necessary. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the curd has set and jiggles a bit like firm jello. Remove from oven; allow to cool to room temperature. Adjust oven temperature to 175° F.

Gently tug parchment away from the edges of your lemon curd and lift out of the pan onto a large cutting board. Or pizza pan. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

Finally, fruit leather: Line a 9″x13″ baking sheet with parchment paper.

Cook blueberries over low heat for 5-7 minutes or until they break down, whichever comes first.

Fruit! My favorite! (So why am I not skinny?)

Throw blueberries, applesauce, and cinnamon into your blender and puree for about 30 seconds until very smooth.

Yummy! I could eat it exactly like this.

Spread puree over covered sheet pan in an even layer and put it into the oven for at least four hours. If your applesauce is watery it’s probably going to take longer. Can you guess what happened? Yep. 10 hours. Over-freaking-night. It was ridiculous.

Tra-la-la-la-la, look at me thinking I’m doing something right.

The finished leather should be dry, soft, and malleable. Anything hard, crispy, or brittle is unusable. Surprisingly, I did not have this issue. Remove leather from the pan and peel off parchment. Slice 1/4″ off all sides with a pizza wheel cutter.

Slice lemon square tart thing into about 12 rectangular bars.

Blimey, that was a pain to slice.

Cut fruit leather to match this size. Yes, you’ll probably have some left over. Down the hatch with it, eh?

Doesn’t have to be exact, but keep the width as close as possible.

Next, with a small sharp blade or exacto knife cut the fruit leather rectangles like so:

Though, the ‘ears’ should curve out a little more than this.

Place leather on top of the lemon bar, with the bottom of the face slightly off the edge. Cut leftover lemon peel into small eyes and a thin pointed tail. Place eyes onto face and tail slightly into the lemon curd. Take care not to crack the curd.

So many enticing smells. SO MANY.

Cut maraschino cherries in half, then cut each half into quarters. Each 1/8th cherry triangle is one nose. Place between eyes. You’re done!

The perfect Bombchu, in my opinion.

You can serve these little guys as-is, or sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar. Believe it or not, the fruit leather complements the lemon quite well. Would you believe it?

A trio of happy and tart Bombchu Bars!

Money shot? Money shot.

And from an angle. Not a bright blue, of course, but really excellent!

The best part is, there’s more Legend of Zelda treats where these come from. Have you seen my Triforce Stained Sugar Glass or Strawberry Soup Health Potion? The dessert soup is my favorite.

Don’t forget; I’m running a giveaway on my Facebook page for my first blogversary. Why not check it out and enter to win a Star Wars Death Star Waffle Maker? Yes, that one. Surely you must be excited.

Coming Up Next: Something from the Hunger Games. No, I don’t know what. I have had a lot going on this week. Promise to tell you all about it if it all pans out to the next phase. Yes, I’m being mysterious. It is blog-related, though. Can you guess?

Cheers,

Leisel

Remember, cooking IRL doesn’t have to be a Feat of Strength!

Entry for #WeeklyChallenge for #FoodBloggers