Tangy pink grapefruit bars are a clever twist on everybody’s favorite lemon bars. The color’s gorgeous, the flavor’s bright and citrusy ~ what’s not to love??

one bowl pink grapefruit bars are a sunny winter bake
Winter doesn’t have a whole lot of perks when it comes to fresh food, but citrus fruit more than makes up for any shortcomings in that area. All citrus, from lemons and limes to grapefruit, pomelo, and kumquats are at their absolute best when the weather is worst. Lucky us!
pink grapefruit’s unique flavor makes a sophisticated treat
If you’re a lemon bar fan you’ll flip for these. In fact a touch of lemon is my secret ingredient, it adds a little lemony tang to that wonderful bitter/sweet juicy grapefruit flavor. These are simple, old fashioned, not too sweet, and bursting with the essence of fresh pink grapefruit. I used the same bowl for the crust and the filling, so it’s one of those busy life kind of recipes. You will need just one pink or Ruby Red grapefruit for the filling. I used whole wheat flour and brown sugar for the crust to give these bars an earthy feel. They are quite good cold from the fridge with a hot cup of coffee in the morning.
more citrus desserts
- Cranberry Orange Cake
- Lemon Chiffon Cake
- The Best Tangy Lime Bars
- Gluten Free Tangerine Cake
- Meyer Lemon Pudding (super easy recipe!)
- Blood Orange Crumble Bars
One Bowl Pink Grapefruit Bars
Ingredients
for the crust
- 1 cup whole wheat flour (you can also use all purpose flour)
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
for the filling
- 2 large eggs
- zest of 1 grapefruit
- 1/2 cup ruby red grapefruit juice
- 3/4 cup sugar
- squeeze of lemon
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 2 Tbsp all purpose flour
- 1 Tbsp corn starch
- a drop or two of red food coloring, optional but pretty
for the garnish
- confectioner's sugar for dusting
Instructions
- Set the oven to 350F
- Line a 9×9 baking dish with parchment paper with overlapping ends so you can remove the cooled squares for easy cutting.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, (you can also do this by hand), combine the butter, flour and sugar until there is no more dry flour feel and the mixture is uniformly crumbly. Press the crust evenly into the pan, using your fingers or the bottom of a metal measuring cup as a tamper.
- Bake the crust for 15 minutes.
- In the meantime, wipe out the bowl and add the filling ingredients. Beat or whisk until everything is well combined and there are no lumps.
- Pour the filling onto the hot crust, and then return to the oven for another 25 minutes, or until set.
- Cool completely in the refrigerator, and then dust with powdered sugar before serving.
These bars need more grapefruit zest and more lemon squeeze to give them more flavor. Otherwise, a very easy recipe for novice.
What a great recipe for grapefruit juice! Iโve also used orange zest instead of grapefruit zest and it worked just fine.
Dear Sue,
thank you for this great recipe!! I am a grapefruits and lemons lover.
I would like to add that I replaced the butter for who is interested, with margarine (shortening also can be successfully used) and baked the crust for 24 min then added the feeling and it was done in 22min.
Julia
15 mins for the crust was not long enough! My oven thermometer showed 350ยฐ, but when I poured the filling on top of the baked crust, it was clearly not baked enough because the filling went to the bottom and the crust floated on top
Hi ๐ I just made these and they kind of got messed up! I did everything in the directions but when I took them out of the oven (they looked funny). Then when I took them out of the fridge and tried them it seemed that the crust and the topping combined. Was super strange, hopefully you know what I did wrong! Thank you!!
– Maddie
Hi Maddie ~ it’s so hard to know without more details…did you make sure to bake the crust first, for the full amount of time? Could your oven temperature be off? Sorry I can’ be more definitive!
Wow these are amazing ! such an easy recipe !!! I’m going to try make these with limes and another with lemon hopefully it works out I couldn’t see why it wouldn’t ๐
You can definitely make these with other citrus fruits, Stacie, and don’t forget I have lots of other citrus bars on the blog for you to try, too, I really like these lime bars (https://theviewfromgreatisland.com/tangy-lime-bars/)
Someone got a razor thin DOF macro lens and isn’t afraid to use it!
๐