Luscious Blood Orange Bars with a Brown Butter Crust
Blood Orange Bars Recipe
It’s this time of year that we start enjoying margaritas, particularly blood orange margaritas and meyer lemon margaritas. Aside from the fact that the holidays are over and our New Years celebrations have officially ended, we’re just beginning to relish in these wonderful cocktails. Why? Whats the occasion? Well, it’s peak citrus season in our neck of the garden-woods, of course.
Though it’s freezing outside and we often wake up to frost on our roofs, all our citrus are still hanging on firm to their branches. When the sun peaks through the clouds in the middle of the day, the citrus get their daily sun bathing sessions to sweeten up their juices and develop their flavors. And what we have before us are bucket loads of blood oranges, mandarins, juicing tangerines, limes and lemons that need to be juiced. Yup, we’re super spoiled. That’s what geeky-gardeners like to do: grow almost 20 citrus trees to feast on during January.
Now that we’ve gloated about our crazy citrus trees, really, what do with a ton of blood oranges? The flavors of these blood red oranges are so perfectly tangy/sweet. The drippy juices are sexy and luscious, so the first thing that comes to mind is making a variation off our meyer lemon bars using they blood oranges. We’ll… to be honest, it was the second or third thought. There were a couple cocktails which came to mind first. But back to the bars… The thought of making these bars with fresh blood orange juice sounded so wonderful and we were hoping that the results would go beyond our theory.
Fingers crossed, we were hoping this first batch would be the on the money because there’s nothing more sacrilegious than to waste 2 cups of fresh blood orange juice. This nectar is what the Greek Gods fought for! ( or at least something close to that mythology).
The results were incredible. What you see before you are some truly luscious, silky, delicious and amazing blood orange bars.
Make them.
Right Away.
If you can get your hand on a generous amount of blood oranges for juicing, this should be one of the first recipes you bake.
Valentines day is coming near and if you’re in a bind as to what to make for your sweetheart, these blood orange bars are perfect to show your love. Really, who needs chocolate? Well, ok, chocolate is a great offering. But mix it up a bit. Be daring, different and break some sweetheart rules and offer a platter of these lovely bars. Your love won’t be disappointed.
Next on the agenda is another variation on this curd for Valentines Day. Again, fingers crossed our next experiment will turn out equally wonderful. If not, we have some back up chocolate sauce to drizzle over what ever were making!
Happy January to you all.
Blood Orange Bars w/ Brown Butter Crust
Ingredients
Crust Ingredients
- 1/2 pound (225g) unsalted Butter
- 1/2 cup (100g) Sugar
- 3 cups (375g) Flour
- 1/2 teaspoon (3g) Kosher Salt
Blood Orange Curd Ingredients - makes @ 6 cups
- 1/4 cup (40g) Cornstarch
- 1 1/2 cup (300g) Sugar
- 1 teaspoon (5g) Kosher Salt
- 12 Eggs , beaten
- 4 Egg Yolks , beaten
- zest of 6 Blood Oranges
- 2 1/2 cups (600ml) Blood Orange Juice
- 1/2 pound (225g or 2 sticks) cold, unsalted Butter , cut into 1/2" pieces
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Set aside a 9"x13" 1/4 sheet pan.
- Make the crust. Put butter in a saucepan and melt over medium heat. Continue cooking the butter until it develops an amber color and begins to smell a bit "toasted nut-like". Remove from heat and stir sugar into butter until mostly dissolved.
- Put flour and salt in a large bowl. Stir in butter and sugar and mix until completely incorporated (it will be a crumbly texture). Press mixture into the 1/4 sheet pan, working the dough up the sides of the pan and evenly across the bottom.
- Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the crust is golden.
- While the crust bakes, make the curd. Whisk together the cornstarch, sugar and the salt in a bowl. Mix in the eggs, zest, and juice. Place bowl over a pot with gently boiling water (cook over a bain marie).
- Cook over the bain marie, stirring frequently until the curd has thickened. Remove from heat and then, a few pieces at a time, stir in the butter until it is completely incorporated. Strain curd through a fine mesh strainer.
- Pour the curd into the cooked crust as soon as you take it out of the oven. Return to the oven and bake for another 15 minutes or until the filling has thickened. Place in the fridge to chill for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.
- Cut into desired pieces and serve chilled.
Nutrition Information per Serving
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I made these today because I love blood oranges and the color is so gorgeous in the photo that I thought it would be a pretty dessert for Easter. The taste of the curd is nice and I think the tart will taste good but the color is not remotely like the picture. Mine are a very unappetizing light orange/pumpkin color although the juice from the oranges was a deep red. Was food dye added to those in the photo?
Hi Sasha. Sorry your color didn’t come out as you expected. There have been several discussions about that in the comments. It seems to vary depending on the blood oranges. We didn’t add coloring but for a more reliable color, it seems to be the consensus that it may be the best way to go.
this is the very first time that i’ve seen blood orange used like that! you did such a pretty job with the presentation too. i’m inspired!
I don’t now how many times I’ve stared at these – but they slay me every time. I can’t stop thinking about them. Beautiful.
Hey! Just wanted to let you know that I made these last weekend and I achieved a very vibrant red/pink color like yours. Used blood oranges from the Laguna Beach farmers market. I loved the recipe- very impressive. Thanks!
Awesome. It must just be our So Cal blood oranges are rockin the color. Thanks for letting me know we weren’t crazy for getting the color like it was. So glad you loved the recipe!
T
The photos look amazing. I was hoping for these to turn out. They turned out to basically be a pale orange-colored egg custard that only had a hint of orange taste to them. I even used a little less egg (10 eggs, 4 yolks). The crust turned out perfect and was really tasty. Maybe if I give these another go, I’ll use even less egg.
A lot of people have had the same problem with the color. I think our garden trees have a color that somehow holds up better after baking. And the orange was very prominent in the taste, again I think due to the fresh picked oranges. I would increase the fresh zest or try to find some blood oranges that when you scratch them, the oils will be easy visible. Maybe increase the amount of zest. For the color, the best may be to add a touch of red food coloring. I think ours were just freakish in their color.
Love the colors in the photos!
LOVE blood orange – haven’t seen many recipes to take advantage of them, so these look gorgeous. Must try. Thanks!
I love blood oranges. They’re just so yummy. But I’ve tried to make these bars twice and both times my color just wasn’t nearly as vibrant as yours. They tasted yummy, but I was hoping for a bright pink color. I may try Krista’s suggestion. Thanks for this awesome idea.
It looks like that is the running consensus about the color. Seems our tree was a bit freakish, in a good way. Our second blood orange tree is just now ripening up so we’ll have to see what happens with that tree. Glad they are yummy!
In the process of making these right now! The zesting and juicing is a pain and very time consuming as I am juicing with a lemon/lime squeezer that uses a cover that does not exactly fit over the oranges. I’m definetly getting out most of the juice from the oranges, but do not have anywhere near the right amount this recipe calls for. Disappointing because I will have to put everything on hold and run up to Wegmans to purchase about 10-12 more oranges just to get the 2 1/2 cups. I just wish I would have known how many oranges I would have needed. Hoping these pretty babies are indeed absolutely heavenly because I don’t know that I will go through the trouble of making them again! Taste review to come.
We went back and forth over whether to say how many blood oranges make 2 1/2 cups since the sizes and juice amount can vary so much. We are lucky to have incredible trees and know most people won’t be able to get the same. By our blood oranges, it took 3 pounds of blood oranges to get 2 1/2 cups, but how efficient you juice them makes a big difference. I can’t believe you tried using a hand squeezer to get that much of any juice. Those are great for one or two limes or lemons, but aren’t very efficient for much more. Even a $4 citrus juicer where you press down on it and it catches the juice at the bottom would be much better. Hope you loved them, regardless of the journey.
Beautiful! I had never had a blood orange… but man you sure are tempting me! 🙂
I made this last night and it was DELICIOUS! My only complaint is that mine didn’t turn out nearly as pink as your pictures! I halved the recipe, but my tart ended up being more of a light peach color. Next time I might add a drop or two of food coloring to get a more appealing color. Thanks for the yummy recipe!
I made these last night and my coloring looks a lot more like pumpkin than the color you achieved. The juice was gorgeous prior to the cooking process, but not so great on the final product. Any hints?
Hello Kelly- Not sure why, but if it’s orange colored, it might be because your egg yolks were very yellow or rich. Many egg yolks vary in color, so that’s the only reason we could think of that would cause the curd to overtake the blood orange color. And blood oranges colors vary quite a bit. If you look at one of our process shots, the juice that came out of our blood oranges was reddish-pink.
oh these are just stunning!
These are stunning!! I LOVE blood oranges, but I definitely need to save some to make these bars. And brown butter crust? Drooling.
Blood oranges and brown butter are two of my favorite things 🙂
The color is stunning! And the brown butter crust? Um yeah, heavenly.