Lemon Lemonies — Like lemon brownies, but made with lemon and white chocolate! Dense, chewy, not cakey and packed with big, bold lemon flavor!
Best Ever Lemon Brownie Recipe
If you like lemon, you’re going to love these bars. They’re packed with bold lemon flavor and are not for the faint of heart.
I’ve seen recipes on Pinterest for similar bars that are called lemon blondies, lemon brownies, or lemon lemonies. My fast, easy, no-mixer version is heavy on the lemon zing and lemonies seems the most fitting.
If you’re looking for traditional lemon bars or a fluffy lemon cake, the lemonies are not it. They’re the lemon equivalent of moist, fudgy brownies with zero traces of cakiness. They’re tooth-sinkingly dense with subtle buttery undertones like blondies have.
After pouring the glaze over the warm bars right as they emerge from the oven, it sets up, seeps into the brownies, and makes them even moister, softer, and more lemony.
With each bite of a lemonie, I wanted another. It’s the type of food that the more you have, the more you want. The boldly tart-yet-sweet element really kept me going back to straighten the rows.
And the texture is exactly what I want in bars. Dense, rich, moist, chewy, and thick enough to be so satisfying.
Between my row straightening and my family’s love for lemon things, the lemonies disappeared fast.
Ingredients for Lemon Brownies
To make the addicting lemony lemon brownies, you’ll need:
- White chocolate chips
- Unsalted butter
- Eggs
- Granulated sugar
- Lemon juice
- All-purpose flour
- Salt
- Confectioners’ sugar
- Lemon zest
How to Make Lemon Brownies
These lemon blondies are incredibly easy to prepare. Instead of milk or dark chocolate, the lemon lemonies are made with melted white chocolate.
Here’s an overview of how the lemon brownie recipe is made:
- Melt the white chocolate and butter together in the microwave.
- Wait a minute or two before adding the eggs, then add the eggs, granulated sugar, and lemon juice, then whisk until combined.
- Stir in the dry ingredients and then turn into an 8×8-inch baking dish.
- These lemon brownies need to bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean, or with a few moist crumbs, but no batter.
- Once the lemon brownies are finished baking, set them aside and whisk together the lemon glaze. Pour the glaze over the brownies.
Tip
You’ll then need to let them cool on your countertop for 2 to 3 hours before slicing and serving.
Can I Use Another Citrus Juice Besides Lemon Juice?
Yes! I’ve actually made these lemon brownies as Orange Orangies as well. You may be able to make a lime version too, but I haven’t tried it out yet.
Can I Double This Recipe?
You most likely can double this recipe and bake the lemon brownies in a 9×13-inch pan. You may need to bump up the baking time though.
Tips for Making Lemon Brownies
The lemon brownies themselves are not super lemony, thanks to melted white chocolate that’s stirred into the batter, but the glaze is pretty zippy. If you want to dial back the overall lemon intensity of the dessert, halve the recipe for the glaze, and drizzle it on like this, rather than flooding the entire surface.
But with lemon desserts, I generally prefer bold lemon flavor, and nothing is every too lemony for my daughter. She picks lemons slices out of ice water and eats them as if they were orange slices. Pucker much.
And it goes without saying that you should use freshly squeezed lemon juice for this spring dessert. The bottled stuff doesn’t hold a candle to juice straight from a lemon!
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Lemon Lemonies
Ingredients
For the Bars
- ¾ cup white chocolate chips
- ½ cup unsalted butter, 1 stick, melted
- 2 large eggs
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- pinch salt, optional and to taste
For the Glaze
- 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
- ⅓ cup lemon juice, or as necessary for consistency
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest, or to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Line an 8-by-8-inch baking pan with aluminum foil, spray with cooking spray; set aside.
For the Bars:
- In a large, microwave-safe bowl add the white chocolate, butter, and heat to melt, about 2 minutes on high power. Stop to check and stir after 1 minute, and then heat in 20-second bursts, stopping to stir after each burst, until mixture can be stirred smooth. White chocolate is very prone to scorching and seizing up, so watch it carefully and don’t overheat.
- Wait momentarily before adding the eggs so you don’t scramble them. Add the eggs, granulated sugar, lemon juice, and whisk until combined.
- Add the flour, optional salt, and stir until just combined; don’t overmix.
- Turn batter out into prepared pan, smoothing the top lightly with a spatula.
- Bake for about 27 to 28 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean, or with a few moist crumbs, but no batter; set aside and make the glaze.
For the Glaze:
- In a medium bowl, add 2 cup confectioners’ sugar, 1/3 cup lemon juice, and whisk until smooth. As necessary, add additional lemon juice (or sugar) to reach desired glaze consistency. I used slightly over 1/3 cup lemon juice. Glaze should be fairly thin and easily pourable.
- Evenly pour glaze over bars, smoothing it lightly with a spatula if necessary, but glaze will likely just slide into place.
Evenly sprinkle with lemon zest. - Allow bars to cool in pan uncovered for at least 2 to 3 hours, (or overnight and cover with a sheet of foil) before slicing and serving so glaze can set up.
Notes
- Bars will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Easy Lemon Desserts:
Softbatch Glazed Lemon Cream Cheese Cookies – Big, bold lemon flavor packed into super soft cookies thanks to the cream cheese!! Tangy-sweet perfection! Lemon lovers are going to adore these easy cookies!!
Soft and Chewy Lemon Cookies – They pack a powerful lemon punch, they’re soft and dense rather than cakey, and they’re thick enough to sink your teeth into!
Lemon Buttermilk Cake with Lemon Glaze — If you’re a lemon lover, you’ll love the perfectly tart yet just sweet enough big pop of lemon flavor this soft and fluffy cake has.
Blueberry Lemon Cake with Lemon Glaze — The cake is packed with sweet, juicy blueberries and while there’s lemon in the batter, it’s the lemon glaze that really brings out the tartly-sweet lemon flavor that complements the blueberries so well.
The Best Lemon Loaf (Better-Than-Starbucks Copycat) – Took years but I finally recreated it!! Easy, no mixer, no cake mix, dangerously good, and SPOT ON!!
Lemon Olive Oil Cake – My new FAVORITE lemon dessert of all time!! Lemon zest, juice, extract, and Limoncello add so much AMAZING lemon flavor to this EASY, ridiculously moist no-mixer cake that’s unique and INCREDIBLE!!
Lemon Coconut White Chocolate Gooey Bars — The lemon base is soft and chewy, there’s coconut and white chocolate chips for extra texture, and sweetened condensed milk peeks through the top.
Strawberry Lemon Crescent Ring — This fast and easy ring that’s ready in 30 minutes has strawberries with lemon and cream cheese incorporated for a tangy pop.
Glazed Lemon Pie Bars — The crust is buttery, soft, and tender while the filling is juicy and luscious with the perfect amount of sweet-yet-tart flavor and a lemon glaze boosts the lemon flavor even more.
Originally published June 14, 2014 and reposted February 28, 2020 with updated text.
This looks like 4th of July dessert to me! We’ll give them a whirl…
They were fantastic! I sent the URL to our friends to try also… Thank you!
Glad you loved them and thanks for sharing the link! :)
I made these and shared with my neighbor, my mom, and my sister’s little family. Everyone raved about how delicious they were! I believe that is saying something when it comes to a lemon dessert. Lemony things tend to be a love/hate kind of thing, but everyone (even my husband who doesn’t care for lemon in anything) thought these were good.
Thanks for the recipe! It’s officially going into my fav recipe file.
Thanks for trying these and you are so right about love/hate with lemon desserts and that’s major praise that your hubs thought they were good too if he normally doesn’t like it much. I honestly am not the hugest lemon desserts fan either but loved the lemonies!
Hi Averie, do you have any ideas of a substitute for the white chocolate in the bars? White chocolate seems to be scarce these days and I REALLY want to make these bars.
Not really because it’s there for both texture and flavor (sweetness) and so I would try to find white chocolate. Not sure where you’re located but any white choc chips from any grocery store will do!
Oh, goodness, I loved these! I tried a recipe for lemonies a different time and liked them, but those pale in comparison to these! The texture of these ones is spot-on. I think next time I’ll use less frosting just so that I can better appreciate the density perfection of these bars. And the white chocolate! We rarely use white chocolate in our house but we’ve got a bunch of white chocolate bags taking up space in our pantry. Now I can use them up, because I definitely want to make these again!
Glad you loved them and now you have a way to use all your white chocolate! I love frosting but you can always reduce it. Another lady wrote to say she poked holes in the top of the bars like a poke cake, and it seeped down wonderfully. So glad to hear my recipe is better than the other you tried in the past :)
ALL I CAN SAY IS OMG!!!!!! Ok so I am not that big of a lemon fan… They looked so good that I had to make them last night. I took some to work today they were a huge hit!!! the only thing I did different was poke holes in the bars right as they came out of the oven to help the frosting soak in. Thank you very much for the awesome lemon goodness!!!
I love your idea of turning them into a poke cake with the hole poking! I actually thought of doing that but for the photography, I didn’t know what they’d end up looking like, so I didn’t but I’m glad you did! And glad you loved them as well as your coworkers. And truthfully, I am not a big lemon fan either (EVERYONE else is though which is why I make lemon stuff) but these even won me over :)
My guy hates basically every baked dessert, especially ones with chocolate and PB. I can leave them out on the counter or unattended in the fridge for weeks, and he won’t touch a single crumb. But lemon? It’s as if a dessert-aholic invaded his body, and he loses all control — it’s so cute! His birthday is next week, and I promised I’d make him lemon bars, but your lemon lemonies look much better… And easier too!
They’re super good, easier than lemon bars, and worthy (if I do say so) for a lemon fanatic’s bday dessert!
So much citrus beauty – where do I start? What shall I bake first?! #BakeItAll
LOL and yes, agreed! :)
Oh wow, I love lemon, and these look amazing. I’m drooling on my keyboard…
I am a sucker for lemons and lemon desserts and these cute lemonies sound perfect! I love how dense and moist they are and that glaze is just mesmerizing! Pinning :)
greetings! these look sooo delish :) so I noticed you gave advice on how to dial back the lemoniness with the topping but what is your advice if someone wanted less frosting over all and more lemony flavor
You could half the batch and add extra lemon zest.
the glaze looks so delicious!
Yep, I need these in my mouth STAT.
Lemon Lemonies — a cute name AND a delicious-sounding bar. Never too much lemon for me :)
The more lemon desserts I make, the more I want it!
Loooove the idea of lemon brownies but have to agree that lemon lemonies is a much more suitable name (after all they are not brown and lemon yellowies would be a bit odd).
Agreed :)
Such a cute name! I’m such a lemon freak, so these are totally up my alley. I mean, lemon brownies/blondie–PERFECTION.
Thanks, Laura, and I want your cauliflower from today!
Love these lemon bars & the name!! Pinned :)
Thanks for pinning and hope you had a great weekend! Looked like lots of fun IG pics the past few days!
That glaze is totally making me drool! So perfect! And so are these bars, I love lemon! Pinned :) Hope you had a great weekend Averie!
Thanks for pinning, Chelsea, and hope you had a great one as well!