Lemon Poppy Seed Bars

Lemon Poppy Seed Bars

These curd-filled treats split the difference between lemon bars and lemon poppy seed cake, with a shortbread-like crust and crumbly streusel topping studded with poppy seeds. If you don’t feel like making homemade lemon curd, store-bought works perfectly, or substitute thick fruit jam or marmalade.

Yield: 16 squares 

1 cup/228 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for the pan

⅔ cup/130 grams granulated sugar

¾ teaspoon fine sea salt

Finely grated zest of 2 lemons

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract (or ¼ teaspoon almond extract)

2¼ cups/270 grams all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons poppy seeds

1 cup/240 grams lemon curd, homemade or store-bought

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square metal baking pan and line the bottom sides with parchment, leaving 1 inch of overhang all around.

Add sugar and salt to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add lemon zest and mix with the paddle attachment until the sugar is moist and fragrant, about 1 minute.

Add the butter and beat on medium speed until smooth, 1 to 3 minutes. Beat in the extract.

Turn off the mixer, add flour, then mix on low speed until combined, about 1 minute. Add poppy seeds and continue to mix on low until incorporated but still crumbly, about 1 minute (do not overmix the dough).

Transfer 1 cup of the crumbled dough to a small bowl. Transfer the remaining dough to the prepared pan and flatten into an even layer using the flat bottom of a glass or your hands. Spread the curd in an even layer over the surface of the crust and sprinkle with reserved dough, crumbling into pieces as you sprinkle.

Bake, rotating after 20 minutes, until the crumb topping is golden brown and the curd bubbles at the edges, 40 to 48 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely in the pan, at least 1½ hours.

Use the parchment to lift the bars out of the pan onto a cutting board. Trim parchment off the edges and cut into 16 squares.

TIP: I baked these yesterday because I had a jar of lemon curd that I needed to use up. It was just shy of a cup. So as was recommended as a possible sub for lemon curd in the video, I added a little drizzle of homemade raspberry jam to the curd. Lemon and raspberry are a great pairing. From there I followed the recipe pretty close, but had to leave out the poppyseeds because I didn’t have any on hand. The lemon raspberry bars turned out really good. I’m sure the bars would also be great with the poppyseeds, but you still have a very good treat without them. My only recommendation is to use good butter since this is a butter heavy recipe—you will taste the butter, so use one you would want to eat on toast. I like Kerrygold.

Bonne Maman and Trader Joe's make good lemon curd.