Orange Bars (with honey whipped cream)
These delicious orange bars have a buttery crust, a creamy orange filling, and are topped with a honey whipped cream.
When I made these luscious lemon bars a while back, I had the idea to make an orange bar in the same way, but with a chocolate shortbread crust instead. Well, obviously, these are not those. My idea morphed as soon as I saw a key lime bar recipe from Half Baked Harvest. It looked so creamy and dreamy. I knew I had to make them. Instead of making them key lime though, I decided to pull in the orange flavor that I was looking for. These turned out so creamy and dreamy just like they looked on Half Baked Harvest’s website.
The interesting thing about these bars is the crust. It’s not a graham cracker crust like you would think. This buttery sweet crust is made with Ritz crackers. Hello buttery crust! It is sweetened a little with brown sugar, but boy is the buttery flavor delicious.
The filling, custard like portion, may look like cheesecake; don’t be fooled. It’s made with a good amount of sweetened condensed milk, eggs, and orange juice. Once it bakes up, it creates this creamy texture.
If that wasn’t enough, it’s topped with a honey whipped cream. Holy cow! How had I never thought of sweetening whipping cream with honey. What a refreshing change from powdered sugar.
These are the perfect spring dessert. They are refreshing and not heavy at all. These will surely impress anyone you serve them to.
Orange Bars (with honey whipped cream)
Ingredients
- 2 sleeves of Ritz crackers about 40 cracker or 2 cups crumbs
- 2 TBS brown sugar
- 1 stick butter melted
- 1 ¾ cup sweetened condensed milk
- 5 egg yolks
- ⅔ cup freshly squeezed orange juice I used Cara Cara
- zest of one orange
- juice of 1 lemon
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 cup heavy cream
- ¼ cup honey
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8×8 pan with parchment paper and set aside.
- In the bowl of a food processor or high powered blender, pulse the ritz crackers until they are in a fine crumb.
- Dump into the pan and add the brown sugar and melted butter. Mix together with your hands and then press into the pan.
- Bake for 10-13 minutes until the crust is golden brown. Set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, combine the sweetened condensed milk, eggs, orange and lemon juices, and salt. Pour over crust and bake for 15 minutes.
- Cool the bars for 1 hour at room temperature. Then cover the top with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 4 hours to completely chill and firm up.
- Once the bars of chilled, make the whip cream. In the bowl of an electric mixture fitted with a whisk attachment, whip the whipping cream with the honey until soft peaks form. Spread on top of bars and serve while cold.