The Hummingbird Challenge: Lemon Bars

I have to start this post saying I'm sorry. I've not got many photos from my making process of these, since whilst baking I wast planning what I'd like to write and how I'd like to describe it and by the time I'd decided what I wanted to say I was finished and I'd not taken any photos! So I'm very sorry!
Nonetheless onwards and upwards!

This time I decided to "use up" the last of my lemons from the other day, after all when I skim-read the ingredients list I thought I didn't need any zest and so would get away with just using the juice from the already grated lemons, but I was wrong and I only realised after I'd mixed most of the other ingredients. Whooops!

The recipe for these Lemon Bars are pretty simple, you mix everything into one and then you bake it for 20 minutes, mix everything else for the topping and then bake it for another 20 minutes. I have to admit the result was the yummiest gooiest Lemon Bar I've ever tasted, and that's with me changing the recipe! So I've decided I simply have to try and make these again before the year is out!

Making the base was rather easy, despite the fact I had to substitute 290g plain flower with 260g of plain flour and 30g of self raising flour (Although this didn't seem to matter too much, the bars were just deeper than expected). Then, being the fool I am, I had to forsake the Lemon zest and instead use lots of fresh lemon juice. I obviously can't compare between the real recipe and this concoction I created but I'm fairly certain the use of lemon juice just made the base more tangy as you could definitely taste the lemon and the consistency seemed about right!
I found the mixture to be overly sticky in the end, probably due to the lemon juice, and it was incredibly hard to spread the dough into the baking tray! There was a lot of cursing and spoon throwing, to the point where my kitten ran away in fear!

As for the topping - I will warn you, before it is cooked it looks absolutely disgusting, an unappetising mix of foam and strong lemony scents. This would not usually have made it into my baking, however I decided to trust the recipe and give it a go! Word of advice, when you place the tray back into the oven with the topping on DO NOT place it on a slant, this was my stupid mistake which meant the covering on the bars was really uneven.
Despite this when I took it out of the oven I was rewarded with a heavenly smell and the greeting of a lovely golden lemony bake! The hardest part was then putting these in the fridge to set, all I thought about from that point on was how good they were going to taste - so when I finally cut them up and had one with a cup of tea I'm proud to say they didn't disappoint.

They were the most delicious, gooey, scrumy, lemony bars I have ever tasted. My family highly enjoyed them and as I said at the beginning these are definitely something I would consider making again (With the right ingredients!)