If you love lemon, you will love these Lemon Almond Streusel Bars.
They have a triple hit of lemon – lemon juice, lemon rind and lemon curd – tempered with a gorgeous hit of almond, all wrapped up in a moist, delicious cake that practically melts in your mouth. They are perfect with a cup of tea or coffee anytime; in fact they were so irresistible I found myself eating them for breakfast!
I discovered a recipe in a cookbook called ‘Top with Cinnamon’ by Izy Hossack. It is well worth adding to your cookbook collection. There are lots of great recipes and the layout and photographs are beautiful.
Izy is a 19 year old food blogger who is already a veteran, having started her blog (also called Top with Cinnamon) when she was 14 years old.
Triple Lemon Streusel Cake was the first recipe I made from the book. It was delicious but I couldn’t resist making a few little tweaks. Izy loves a strong tang of lemon in her baking and it is wonderful. However, I wanted to temper the tang a bit to suit my family’s tastes so I added almond extract to turn the recipe into Lemon Almond Streusel Bars. I adore almond and lemon together and it really works well here. I made a couple of other adjustments as well.
As well as being perfect as a snack anytime, I serve slightly larger Lemon Almond Streusel Bars on pretty plates topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream as a dessert for guests. It’s nice to offer small glasses of Amaretto or Limoncello to the adults to accompany the dessert as well.
- Crumble Topping
- 2 tablespoons demerera sugar
- 3 tablespoons plain flour
- 2 tablespoons rolled oats
- 2 tablespoons cold butter, cut in pieces
- Batter
- ½ cup butter, melted
- ¾ cup caster (superfine) sugar
- 2 teaspoons lemon zest
- 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, divided
- ⅔ cup buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1 cup + 2 tablespoons flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ⅔ cup rolled oats
- ¼ cup + 1 tablespoon cream cheese
- ¼ cup lemon curd
- Glaze
- ⅔ cup icing (confectioner's) sugar
- 2 to 3 teaspoons of lemon juice
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C or 160°C for a fan oven).
- Grease a 20 cm (8 inch) square cake pan and line the bottom with baking parchment.
- For the crumble topping, combine the demerera sugar, flour, rolled oats and cold butter (first 4 ingredients) in a medium bowl.
- Cut the ingredients together with a pastry blender or rub with your fingers until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs.
- Set aside.
- Pour the melted butter into a large bowl.
- Stir in the caster sugar thoroughly and then add the lemon juice and zest.
- Stir in the buttermilk and almond extract.
- Beat in the eggs.
- Stir in the flour, baking powder, salt and oats.
- Mix until well combined but don't worry if the batter is lumpy, that is because of the oats.
- Set the batter aside.
- Stir together the cream cheese and lemon curd. Set aside.
- Spread a half of the batter in the prepared cake tin.
- Spread the lemon curd and cream cheese mixture over the top.
- Drop the remaining batter by tablespoons over the top of the lemon curd mixture and spread the batter to cover the top evenly.
- Sprinkle with crumble topping.
- Bake for 35 to 45 or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
- Cool completely before glazing.
- To glaze, mix the icing sugar together with enough of the lemon juice to make a smooth, drizzle-able glaze.
- Drizzle the glaze over the cake.
- Allow the glaze to set before cutting into bars or larger squares.
If you enjoyed this recipe you may also like my Lemon Ginger Pound Cake.
nancy@skinnykitchen.com says
April 19, 2015 at 3:42 pmThese have got my name written all over them. Yum!!!
April Harris says
April 20, 2015 at 10:49 amI’m so glad you like them, Nancy! Thank you 🙂
Diane says
April 19, 2015 at 4:11 pmApril these dessert bars look so good. We love this sort of thing at our house. The lemon, almond flavor combo in an oaty creamy bar sound so perfect for a treat!
April Harris says
April 20, 2015 at 10:49 amThank you, Diane! We love this kind of thing at our house as well – lemon and almond are such perfect partners 🙂
Dan from Platter Talk says
April 20, 2015 at 12:54 pmSuch a beautiful job with these little bars!!
April Harris says
April 20, 2015 at 4:25 pmThank you so much, Dan 🙂
Patricia @ Grab a Plate says
April 20, 2015 at 3:34 pmOh wow!! Absolutely love the “triple hit” of lemon! These are beauties!
April Harris says
April 20, 2015 at 4:25 pmThank you, Patricia! The different kinds of lemon really does give them lovely layers of flavour 🙂
Florian @ContentednessCooking says
April 20, 2015 at 3:40 pmBeautiful bars, love it! My mouth is watering! 🙂
April Harris says
April 20, 2015 at 4:26 pmThank you, Florian 🙂
Kecia says
April 20, 2015 at 4:53 pmThese make me want to take another coffee break just so I could eat one!
April Harris says
April 20, 2015 at 5:06 pmI know that feeling, Kecia 😉 Thank you!
janelle says
April 20, 2015 at 9:50 pmI need this in my life! What a beauty!
April Harris says
April 21, 2015 at 8:50 amThank you, Janelle 🙂
Joanne T Ferguson says
April 22, 2015 at 3:16 amThese look delicious April and are now on my list to do!
April Harris says
April 22, 2015 at 4:30 pmThank you, Joanne! I hope you and yours enjoy them as much as we do 🙂
Gentle Joy says
April 24, 2015 at 3:40 pmHow pretty! …. and they look delicious too. 🙂
April Harris says
April 24, 2015 at 4:02 pmThank you so much 🙂
swathi says
April 26, 2015 at 11:11 pmLooks delicious Lovely lemon almond streusel bas
April Harris says
April 27, 2015 at 12:40 pmThank you, Swathi 🙂
Cydnee/Tampa Cake Girl says
April 30, 2015 at 3:59 amI love recipes with lemon. These lemon almond bars look amazing! Thank you very much for joining in the celebration of #purebloglove, we enjoy having you each week. I hope to see you on Thursday at 8PM, EST through Sunday night. ~Cydnee
April Harris says
April 30, 2015 at 3:52 pmThank you, Cydnee! Look forward to seeing you then 🙂
Joanne/WineLady Cooks says
May 3, 2015 at 8:34 pmYour Lemon Almond Streusel Bars sound so delicious. I can’t wait to give this recipe a try. This a perfect treat for Mother’s Day.
April Harris says
May 4, 2015 at 11:29 amThank you, Joanne 🙂
Miz Helen says
May 6, 2015 at 2:55 pmHi April,
Your Lemon Almond Streusel Bars look amazing, we will just love these bars. Hope you are having a great week and thanks so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday.
Come Back Soon!
Miz Helen
April Harris says
May 6, 2015 at 4:22 pmThank you so much, Miz Helen! I hope you are having a great week too 🙂
Winnie says
August 31, 2015 at 10:38 amThese look fantastic, and I’m sure my family would just loooooooove them!!
April Harris says
September 1, 2015 at 9:51 amThank you, Winnie 🙂
Miz Helen says
May 16, 2017 at 5:02 pmJust pinned your awesome bars! Hope you are having a fantastic week and thanks so much for sharing with us at Full Plate Thursday. We will look forward to seeing you again real soon!
Miz Helen
April Harris says
May 17, 2017 at 9:04 pmThank you so much, Miz Helen, and thank you for pinning too!