Who doesn’t love a good pink lemonade? What I like most about these suckers is that they’re pretty and tasty. While they weren’t Cody-friendly (citrus and strawberries are eczema-triggering foods) I couldn’t resist adding them to my ice cream parlour party menu.

Active Time: 15 minutes | Cooking Time: 45 minutes
Difficulty: Intermediate

Ingredients 

• 1 stick of butter, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cup plus 1/4 cup flour, divided
• 1/4 cup plus 1 cup sugar, divided
• 1/4 tsp plus 1/4 tsp salt, divided
• 3/4 cup strawberries, rinsed and roughly chopped
• 1 large lemon zested and halved
• 4 large lemons halved
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar, for dusting

Directions

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees. If you have a convection setting, use it! Using the dough blade of a food processor, pulse your butter until it’s crumbly. Add the 1 1/2 cup flour,first 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 cup sugar to the bowl and pluse until crumbly and combined, being sure to scrape the sides of the processor a few times to make sure everything is well incorporated. Dump the entire flour mixture into a greased 13×9 inch casserole and press into the bottom of the pan. If you have another smaller (7×11) pan, you can layer that on top and press down to get a pretty darn flat surface. Bake the crust for 18 minutes.

While the crust is baking, you’ll make your custard filling. Toss your strawberries into the bowl of a food processor and blend until smooth. Next, add the lemon zest and juice your lemon halves directly into the food processor bowl, careful not to let any pits fall in. Add the rest of your ingredients, excluding the powdered sugar: 1 cup sugar, 1/4 tsp salt, eggs and baking powder. Blend them all up until smooth and pour over the crust once it finishes baking.

Bake the entire thing for another 25 minutes and remove from the oven to cool. Once the bars reach room temp, you can finish cooling them in the refrigerator. Just before serving, dust the casserole with powdered sugar using a mesh collander and cut into small bars with a sharp knife.