Lime Trees and Lime Bars

The limes are in full swing in the garden here. I can never really figure out their season- I used to think it was early spring, along with oranges and grapefruits. But it gets confusing, seeing as lemons are a year-round commodity. A neighbor's tree looked like it had been blooming lovely limes last March, I believe it was, so I plucked a few and added them to thai curries and even attempted to make lime bars. The recipe I followed was for lime-coconut bars with coconut in the crust and sprinkled on top, before the bars were done. The bars did not come out quite right; in fact the filling completely set and it didn't even taste good. The bars sat on the kitchen table for almost a month, a sign that they were truly awful if my roommates and their friends refused to gobble them down.

I've been doubting whether those 'limes' I picked were actually limes or if they were un-ripe lemons and I cut their life short. I will blame the failed bars on those limes for now, and gave the ol' lime bar a second chance. My friend's obsessed with limes. She had a picked a couple limes one day, which we wedged and sliced to add to raspberry-lime margaritas one hot evening. Craving more, I went with her to the garden, upon the agreement that we would both take our bikes to the campus bike program. My tire had been flat since before I left for the Bay- this was the second time it got flat in two days and she had yet to inflate her tires since last May. I brought along a new tire and new tube, determined to set things straight with my 10-speed. I ended up finding a staple in my tire, the cause of my tube flats and with a rather slow patch process (I kept losing track of the staple's damage), we finally made it to the garden. We first explored the fig tree, finding no ripe ones on one, but an abundance of exploding flesh on a different tree, one that's a bit more off the path. After finding a tub in which to place the sopping figs, we began to move through the lime trees, exploring all of its bounty, choosing those that just fell off at a moment's notice, into our open hands. A dozen limes later, we had navigated the tree's north, south, east and west sides and felt content for the time being. Limeade and lime bars. Today's goal had been set.

This time, I followed a lemon bar recipe, courtesy of Deb and her Smitten Kitchen blog. The crust was delicious- I made a slight adjustment to the original tart crust, which I have in another post.

I baked the tart in a pie pan, following Deb's "thinner lemon layer" recipe. After rolling out the crust and placing it in the pan, I baked it for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees, until it was a delicate golden brown. While it was going, I first zested about 10 of the limes using a cheese grater to reach 1 tbsp + 1 tsp lime zest. After softening up the limes with my hands (I always roll them back and forth a couple of times, applying light pressure to get the juices flowing), I began juicing them in a 1/3 cup measuring cup and accidentally spilled the work of two very dear limes. Luckily, I was able to sop of most of the juice,  but I ended up using all 12 limes in total to get a perfect 2/3 cup juice. I whisked the zest, juice, 4 eggs, 2/3 cup whole wheat flour, and about 1 cup of sugar together in a bowl. I tasted it for good measure, unsure if I should add more sugar. I determined it was plenty sweet and when the dough was ready, I added the filling and placed it in the oven for 25 minutes at 350.

I was worried about burning the filling again, so I took it out after 25 minutes when I realized that it had set into a solid. Though it wasn't a gooey mess like I had intended, the filling was still soft and delicate, bursting with lime flavor.

Ingredients


1 tart crust
2/3 cup lime juice, about 10-12 limes
1 tbsp + 1 tsp lime zest (remember to do this BEFORE you juice)
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup whole wheat, or all-purpose flour