TMDSAS, AMCAS, and Lemon Bars!

So medical school applications opened this past week for Texas and AMCAS. I'm busy pecking away at the key board trying to find the right words (but under 5000 characters) as to why I want to be a doctor. I definitely thought 5000 characters (with spaces) was more than what it is...so now I'm anxiously trying to cut down on the essay to make sure I'm not leaving out any important parts. 


But I figure I'll be writing A LOT of essays anyways, so whatever I don't say in this one will get covered in another one. 


I'm surprisingly excited about this whole process, the medical school application. The scary process is actually...soothing in a way. After a year of teaching, which is most certainly no walk in the park, it is nice to have something...concrete. Something I know I can do, something I want to do, something I want so bad. So -- in a sick, masochistic kind of way, I'm looking forward to it. 


So! To celebrate the process, and to get T- off my back about making these again, I decided to make lemon bars! 


I used a recipe from the great Ina Garten...but I just modified a tad bit. 


Try them -- they're so good. If you've never had them before, let me try to describe them...


they're like lemons, but sweeter, with biscuits on the bottom, but flakier, with eggs, but it's not at all eggy. It's wonderful.


My first try with the recipe today, was terrible. I forgot to turn the oven down when I was cooking the lemon custard stuff on top, and it turned into lemon scrambled eggs. BLERGH. epic fail. 

At least he thought they were tasty

So I let the dog eat some, after I threw a mini-fit about ruining them. 

woof

Try 2 = perfection. I turned the temperature down, checked them like an insane person every 10 minutes. Beautifulness. 


Enjoy!


Lemon Bars
Recipe modified from Ina Garten


Shortbread Crust
0.5 lb butter, room temperature
0.5 cups sugar 
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350F

Cream together the butter and sugar in a mixer with the paddle blade. Add in the flour slowly (I did about a 1/2 a cup at a time), and add in the salt. 

Yep, I ate some.

You can change the amount of salt for how salty you like things to be...I like more salt to contrast the sweet, but it's really up to you. 

Spread it in a 9x13in evenly, and toss it in the oven for 15 min. When it's done, pull it out. 

It was good.

Ready for the oven!

Lemon Topping
6 large eggs
2.5 cups sugar 
1 cup flour
1 zest of lemon
1 cup lemon juice

Lower the temperature of the oven after the shortbread crust comes out to around 250F.

Whisk all these items together. I suggest the wet ingredients first, then the flour slowly to prevent any clumping. If you don't have zest of lemon, seriously, don't worry about it. I did it the first time without, it's not a big deal. 

Pour this on top of the shortbread crust after its cooled for a bit. 

hello, beautiful.

Put it in the oven for 30 min at 250F, but check it every 15 min. You don't want the eggs to scramble, that's why you lower the temperature. You want it to set like a custard (kind of like lemon curd, but thicker). 

Yum yum yum

Tasty :-)

After that, pull it out, let it set and cool, and sift some powdered sugar over it! 

Tasty goodness :-)