Leprechaun Brownies

St. Patrick's Day is coming up, and Pinterest is full of Pinteresting crafts and recipes for St. Patrick's Day.  I fully intend to make a rainbow fruit plate, Lucky Charms cereal with green milk, spinach smoothies and other green goodies before the month is over, but the pin that caught my eye wasn't even green.  It was a pin for Lemony Lemon Brownies.  Our dwarf lemon tree bears fruit every other year, and 2013 is a Lemon Year, so I've finally got some lemons to use up!  Fortunately,  green and yellow are in the same color family, so all it takes to turn these lemon brownies into Leprechaun Lemon Brownies is a touch of green food color.  For some reason the lemon rind refused to turn green, but I think it just makes this treat look even nicer.


As with all things Pinterest, it's difficult to trace the original recipe, but from what I can tell, it was originally posted on Rita May Recipes, adapted by Bakergirl, then adapted yet again by BeckyCharms. I used BeckyCharms' version, with a few tweaks of my own:

* I added a few drops of green food coloring to both the brownie batter and the glaze.
* The juice of 2 medium-sized lemons and the zest of 3 was just about enough for the measurements below
* I used only half of the glaze (it was sweet enough already).

These leprechaun brownies are moist and chewy and intensely lemony, the perfect bait for a leprechaun trap, especially when the leprechaun happens to be your husband.

Leprechaun Brownies

The "Brownie" Batter
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons lemon zest
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 drops green food coloring

Tart Lemon Glaze {bonggamom's note: this are the original measurements; I only used half}
1 rounded cup powdered sugar
4 tablespoon lemon juice
8 teaspoons lemon zest
3 drops green food coloring

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease/Spray an 8-by-8-inch baking dish with butter/cooking spray and set aside.

Zest and juice two small/large lemons; set aside. {whatever you have}

In the bowl of an electric mixture fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the flour, sugar, salt, and softened butter until combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, lemon zest, food coloring and lemon juice until combined. Pour into the flour mixture and beat at medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes.

Pour into baking dish and bake for 23-25 minutes, or until just starting to turn golden around the edges and a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before glazing. Do not overbake, or the bars will be dry.

When brownies are cooled completely, make the glaze...sift the powdered sugar, add lemon zest, food coloring and juice, and whisk together all three ingredients. Spread 1/2 the glaze over the brownies with a rubber spatula. Let glaze set. Spread the remaining glaze over the bars {bonggamom's note: I skipped this step!}, and let it set. This glaze does not harden like most. Cut into bars, and serve!