luscious lemon bars with whipped cream

There's not much to do during cabin fever time in New Hampshire, except scowl at the five to seven foot drifts of ice and snow, and eat. Sometimes it's sweets, sometimes it's a nice spicy gumbo, or a beautiful roasted chicken. Today, it's sweets. These are very lemon-y, with a nice buttery crust, filled with tangy lemon filling, almost like a lemon curd. And , of course, it tastes even better with the puffs of lightly sweetened whipped cream.

You will need a large rectangular cake pan. Grease pan with Crisco, or butter.

To make:

Preheat oven to 350.

In mixing bowl, mix:

2/3 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups King Arthur flour

Mix above until it is crumbly. Press into pan and place in oven for 15 minutes, until slightly browned and toasty. ( It smells WONDERFUL)

While it's cooking, you can make the lemon filling.

In same mixer bowl, mix:

4 eggs

1/1/2 cups sugar

4 T. flour

zest of one lemon

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

1/2 t. baking powder

Lower oven temperature to 325. Pour the egg mix into the par-baked shell, and place in oven. Bake at 325 for 25 minutes or so -if you have hot spots in your oven, you'll want to turn it around once while it's baking.

Remove to cooling rack . Let sit 10 minutes, then use a spatula or dough scraper to mark off squares and cut. Remove squares to cooling rack.

Whip up some cream, lightly sweetened with confectioner's sugar, and use either a spoon or a pastry tube to pipe cream onto squares. Add another square, and pipe more cream on top. Indulge and enjoy.