Tag Archives: Passover Lemon Squares

Mystery Solved

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Last week I posted about my epic failure with Passover Lemon Pistachio Bars . I made a nut crust for my lemon squares because flour is not permitted on Passover. When I baked the lemon squares, the crust floated to the top and the lemon filling sunk to the bottom – sort of upside down lemon squares!

I put out a call for assistance in helping me figure out where I went wrong. I got lots of feedback and suggestions. Thanks. You guys are the best! The mystery is solved. I received a comment from my neighbour Jackie.  If like me, you geek out over the science of baking, reading her explanation will fascinate you.

Here’s what she wrote:
I may have the answer. It has to do with the specific gravity of the ingredients. Nuts are lighter than water, so will float. Ground nuts remain as little pieces of nuts after baking. So, a crust mixture with a high proportion of nuts will be far less dense than the filling. The situation was exacerbated by the lack of flour to form a cake/pastry matrix which may have locked in the nuts pieces.

To confirm my suspicion, I looked up the FAO Density Database (2012). Water of course has a specific gravity of approximately 1 gram /mL, depending on temperature. (I love that there’s a Density Database!!)

almonds 0.46 grams/mL
pistachios, out of shell, 0.65 grams/mL

fruit juice 1.06 g/mL
butter 0.91 g/mL

So, given that the gravity of nuts is less than the gravity of the lemon filling (fruit juice and butter), it makes sense that the nuts floated to the top. I can go to bed happy tonight. Thanks Jackie!

In other good news, I no longer have to feel guilty about the 10 pounds of butter I keep in my freezer for when the urge to bake hits. Check it out  in this article: Pass the butter!

 

 

Magic Passover Pistachio Lemon Bars

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lime bars 2Spoiler alert! These were an epic fail. My husband encouraged me to blog about them, even though I would never serve them or make them again. He said that publicly acknowledging my failure would make me more likeable and relatable to my readers. My daughter urged me not to blog about them because no one wants to read about bungled pastry.

In the end, I decided to share with you , if only to see if anyone can solve the mystery of what happened to these bars. More about that in a minute.

If you had come into my house at the beginning of this week, you would have inhaled deeply and said, “It smells heavenly in here.” The air was intoxicatingly scented with coconut, butter, brown sugar and chocolate and almonds. Every year, I am in charge of baking desserts for our family seders. (40 plus on my husband’s side the first night, and 35 plus on my side the second night)

And yes, I would have agreed with you that it was smelling quite delicious in my kitchen on that first day of baking. However, by day 3 of my bake-a-thon, the ambrosial scent suddenly turned  cloying and I could no longer stomach the stench of coconut, sugar and chocolate. I needed a break and thought that some citrus would help clear the air.

I was inspired by these pistachio-lemon bars from Molly O’Neill over at NYT Cooking. Since flour is not used during Passover, I replaced the all-purpose flour in the recipe with ground almonds.crust in food processor 1pat crust into pan A very strange thing happened when I baked them. The crust rose to the top and the lemon filling sunk to the bottom, and stuck horribly to the parchment paper lining.

I scraped them out of the pan and tried again, with this recipe from Joy of Kosher. I used pistachios instead of walnuts in the crust and ground almonds instead of matzoh meal in the filling. Same thing happened when I baked them. The crust magically rose to the top and the filling sunk and stuck.

I am nothing if not persistent, so I tried once more, figuring maybe third time’s the charm.  I used  Anna Olsen’s lemon squares recipe filling and doubled the amount of the first crust I tried, figuring, if it was heavier, it would stay put. I had run out of lemons, so I used limes this time.Lime fillingThe filling sunk to the bottom again, but this time it did not stick too terribly to the parchment so I was able to get them out of the pan, flip them over and slice them into squares. While they had a nice lemon tang, the crust became soggy after a few minutes. Within an hour they were a stodgy gluey mess.lime bars 1If anyone reading this knows the reason for the sinking filling, I’d love an explanation. Hope your baking is going better than mine!!