Pudding cakes are an alchemy of baking, a luscious dessert that has two layers: a creamy pudding underneath crowned by a sponge cake that rises like a soufflé.
It takes minutes to prepare and the one featured here is a lemon pudding cake. The batter has just few ingredients: egg yolks, whipped whites, melted butter, flour, sugar, lemon and milk. Voila! It puffs up in the baking leaving behind a luscious pudding underneath.
Serve the lemon pudding cake warm or refrigerate and serve chilled with whipped cream
It’s often referred to as “old-fashioned” and found in cookbooks with remembrance recipes of grandmothers’ pudding cakes (chocolate pudding cake is another popular one). I find it a thoroughly modern dessert, one perhaps that has gone out of style but begs for revival.
Serve it warm or cold out from the fridge topped by whipped cream.
Serve the lemon pudding cake warm or refrigerate and serve chilled with whipped cream
Ingredients
- 4 eggs, separated
- Zest from 1 small lemoncup lemon juice
- 1/3 cup lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
- 1cup sugar
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 1/2 cups whole milk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Generously butter an 8-inch square glass baking pan. Put it into a larger pan and when ready to fill and bake fill with hot water and carefully lay the pan in the water, careful not to let any water get into the filling. Set aside.
- Meanwhile put the egg whites into the bowl of a stand mixer and the yolks into a medium-large mixing bowl.
- Whisk in the the lemon zest, lemon juice and melted butter. In a medium size bowl whisk together the flour, sugar and salt.
- Whisk in half the sugar-flour mixture and then whisk in half the milk until thoroughly combined. Add the remaining flour mixture and milk. Add the optional vanilla extract.
- Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold this gently into the batter. Transfer to the prepared dish; fill the large pan with water and put the baking dish in the water. Bake for 45 minutes or until the top feels firm and is browned and puffed.
