No-Bake Grapefruit Bars
I always seem to make big plans on weekends to go outside and get a ton of work and productive stuff done, but they never materialize. Instead, I usually end up procrastinating in various ways, mostly through baking. Sunday was no exception. It's midterms season for me, and I wanted to get a head start on everything I would inevitably dread over the coming week, but instead I spend the majority of my hours making (or rather, attempting to make) various recipes for this project. I made the palmiers in the morning, these grapefruit bars in the afternoon, and mondel bread in the evening. I also made the pie dough for a recipe that I will make soon (I don't know how soon, because it's pretty involved and calls for quite a few eggs and heavy cream, which I'm running low on... hint hint). I was a little exhausted, and I ended up slightly regretting my manic baking episode, but I know there will be a time in my life when I look upon this period fondly.
These No-Bake Grapefruit Bars are from What's for Dessert. I chose to make this recipe because grapefruit is in season and really sweet this time of year and because this is one of the few recipes I could find in Claire's collection that does not call for eggs. Thankfully, I have been able to largely avoid the great egg panic of 2023 - my Trader Joe's has recently started carrying them again, and they're around $3 a dozen which is pretty much unheard of in this day and age. That being said, because I bake, I go through eggs like crazy, and the fewer eggs a recipe calls for, the more recipes I'm able to get through! So if you're one of those people who's just up in arms about the price of eggs, this might be the recipe for you.
To be honest, I tend to thumb my nose at "no-bake" desserts because they tend to feel a little gimmicky and designed for people who are lazy or, even worse, go on and on about how they "don't bake". To be fair, this isn't an entirely no-bake recipe - the graham cracker crust does go in the oven by itself - but the grapefruit filling is set entirely in the fridge. Claire says in the headnote that this method is a good application for grapefruit because it tends to turn bitter and dull in flavor when it gets baked. I really appreciated that Claire had a solid reason for not baking the filling, and it made me trust the process a little more.
The filling consists of a mixture of heavy cream and sugar that gets boiled down to a condensed milk-like consistency (I'm not sure why she didn't just call for condensed milk, but I'm sure there's a reason), and then combined with grapefruit juice and cream cheese. This is a good time to disclose that I am cooking out of very cheap Teflon pots and pans, and as I was reducing the heavy cream I noticed several tiny black specks dispersed into the mixture. "I don't remember putting a vanilla bean in here," I thought. Upon further inspection, I came to the realization that these were actually tiny flakes of plastic non-stick coating that had been peeling off. I'm not sure why - I don't use any metal tools on them - but perhaps it's just that they're not built to handle the high-intensity whisking and stirring that I use them for. I decided to proceed with the recipe because I knew I was going to be the only person eating these and I really don't mind putting toxins into my own body (just not other people's). For the record, there were no strange black specks in the finished product. However, that realization did gross me out a little, so I'll probably have to buy a new saucepan for my next stovetop recipe.
This is generally an easy recipe, but there are a few steps that I perceived as not fussy per se, but just, well, sure, a little fussy. Claire says to chill the reduced heavy cream mixture in an ice bath before combining it with the grapefruit juice and cream cheese. I am a college student who definitely does not have an ice-making machine, so I got a little bit lazy and stuck it in the fridge until it seemed cool enough. She also says to add the heavy cream and grapefruit juice to the cream cheese in small, slow amounts to help the filling blend smoothly and prevent large lumps of cream cheese. The filling then gets poured onto the baked graham cracker crust and chilled in the fridge for 4 hours. Maybe I didn't whip the filling to a thick enough consistency - or maybe that ice bath was a really important step that I shouldn't have cheated on, and my heavy cream mixture was still a little too warm - but after 4 hours the bars still weren't totally set. I was stupid, and instead of leaving them in a little longer, I decided to cut them right away, so the bars ended up a little sloppy and messy-shaped. This really upset the perfectionist in me. I veered away from the recipe a little and decided to stick the bars in the freezer to speed up the process a little bit. This then turned into me leaving the bars in the freezer overnight because the sun had set before I could get a good picture of them. While these didn't do anything bad to the bars per se, I don't really recommend doing this because it's just me overcomplicating things. Once the bars had thawed completely, they were fine and probably almost identical to the version Claire had produced, but it was still a bit of a hassle. Perhaps it would've been smarter to freeze the entire pan and then cut them into bars, but I've learned that when in doubt, it's better just to leave them in the fridge. The freezer should be a last resort.
Claire has you cut the recipe into a 3-by-4 grid of 12 bars, so they're slightly rectangular in shape. I think it's interesting that she has you do it this way rather than a 4-by-4 grid of 16. Maybe she tried it that way and thought the portions weren't large enough. The bars then each get topped with little segments of fresh grapefruit. I really like this touch - the juicy, piercing fresh grapefruit plays well against the creamy, slightly citrusy filling. The filling itself isn't over-the-top with grapefruit flavor, but it's still noticeably there. It definitely has a creamsicle-like vibe with a nice amount of sweet, floral tanginess offset by the richness of the cream cheese. There was a significant change in texture once the bars had thawed - when I first had one, pretty much straight out of the freezer, they seemed almost too rich and creamy, but after I allowed them to thaw in the fridge, they transformed into a delightfully silky and smooth texture, and the citrus came through a lot better.
These bars were really delightful. I'm not sure if they're my favorite thing I've made so far, and I'm still slightly iffy on the whole no-bake deal, but I'd definitely consider making them again. They feel a little adjacent to ice cream and other frozen desserts, very cheesecake-adjacent, and look very pretty adorned with the jewel-like grapefruit segments (they'd look even prettier if I had cut them into clean slices!) Overall, they're a really nice, casual, fun dessert that have a fresh, summery vibe to help perk up this slightly depressing late winter period.
Verdict: 8/10
I've been going a little back and forth about how to approach this project. Over the past couple days, I've really been leaning into the philosophy that the more recipes I crank out, the better. Sure, I'd like to make decent progress on this project, and getting a few of the simpler and maybe less "grand" recipes out of the way seems like a good strategy, but I also don't want to tire or overwork myself. I really want to give the utmost attention to every recipe I make, and I want every recipe to feel special to me. I don't know if making three to four recipes a day is the right way to go about that. I'll probably formulate some ground rules: one recipe a day, don't make anything new until you've finished writing about everything you've already made, and don't feel pressured to make TikToks for every recipe - only the ones you totally feel passionate about.
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