Making lemon bars the first time I found that they were too thick in my mouth, that they had too much weight and the butter caused somewhat of a weird sensation in my mouth. Given this, I decided to breed lemon bars with lemon merengue pie just slightly to give them a bit less weight and more of a light lemon tang, but equally sour. I love the taste of lemon, so these are super lemony. To adjust the lemon taste add more or less zest as you like. I tend to balance this out with a graham crackr crust--which is low fat. These will be more delicate than the typical lemon bar, but also lower in fat though the taste seems to say I'm lying.

Ingredients:
* 2 sticks (8 ounces) butter
* 2 cups flour
* 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
* 1 large egg, beaten
* 3 large egg whites
* 2 cups sugar
* 4 tablespoons flour
* 1/4 cup lemon juice (from real lemons is best, especially from a neighbor's yard--or shipped to you richer flavor. Don't use bottled stuff, no punch.)
* 1 lemon zest (or more)
* confectioners' sugar

Graham Cracker crust:
1 bag of graham crackers from a box (cinamon graham crackers are best, just adjust the sugar.
cinnamon (to taste)
4 tablespoons melted butter
nutmeg (optional) [great for holiday and winter]

Optional Merengue:
* 4 large egg whites
* 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar (honey also works when added to the beginning.
* Vanilla (to taste)
* cream of tartar (pinch)
* 1 tsp -1 tablespoon rum (optional)

Grind the sugar, brown sugar and the graham crackers together. The best way to do this is a food processor. Second best is to take a large sealable bag push out all the air and bang it repeatedly with a hammer. (The latter being more fun and taking about as much time and ironically less mess--you can pour the butter into the bag shake it and then dispense it neatly into the pan). Add the tablespoons of melted warm butter and vanilla, (cinnamon, nutmeg or whatever else) mix with the graham crackers. coat them well poor into the 13x9x2-inch pan and press gently into bottom and a little up the sides. Bake in a preheated 325¡ oven for 15-20 minutes. Take out of the stove and let cool.

Lemon pie is always a pain to make in the traditional way--the whole you have to add cornstarch thing and if you do it wrong throw it out. So instead I do it like a Key lime pie. This makes it look cloudy, but no one really cares all too much because the translucence isn't comprimised all that much and the consistency is always better. It also sets more evenly. So to do this, grate as many lemons as you want first, then roll the zestless lemons against the counter to help with the juicing. Squeeze over a separate bowl and try to get as much of the lemon juice out as humanly possible. Extract all of the seeds from the pot. Add the scrambled egg to the pot. Add flour and sugar. Slowly bring this up to a boil, once it starts to thicken kill the heat down to a low simmer. Once it starts to really thicken, pour into the shell that was created.

Merengue:

This is best to do when the mixture has cooled and not before. If you do it before the merengue is most likely to melt and fall off.

Move rack to top. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Beat the egg whites and vanilla (and rum) to soft peaks, gradually add the confectioners sugar and cream of tartar and bring to hard peaks.

Put the merengue on top of the second layer (the lemon layer) of the sheet try to spread evenly and flatly (unlike a pie which you mound).

Put into oven for about 10- 15 minutes until brown. watch it carefully as it will have a tendancy to burn.

For a special effect...
If you are doing this for a holiday party (especially for winter) It mght be flashy to sprinkle some rum on top of the merengue and *carefully set it on fire. Make sure the merengue is cooked *first* before you do this. It will brown the merengue more and look really flashy to guests.

Tips:

- Lemon strings look better and taste better than just ground. If you take a cheese grater and use the small string part the lemon zest will be easier to extract from the back and also easier to clean overall with minimal waste and effort. Even if you don't like strings a quick runover with your knife will quickly cure this.

-The weight of the lemon bars depends heavily on the amount of butter and flour that goes into them. If you lighten the amount of egg yolk v. white (more white=lighter) this also makes the diference between lemon bar and lemon merengue pie.