You Should Be Making This Lemon Pudding Cake All Summer Long

The much-hyped Instagram dollop of moist lemon cake with a little pudding underneath may have made its way onto your feed on more than one occasion, making it all the easier to scroll past and forget in an instant. What’s so special about eating pudding and cake?you might be wondering. I encourage you to take a second look: it’s actually a crust that bakes in two separate layers, and frankly, it’s the light, bright, and sumptuous dessert you should be savoring all summer long.

How does a lemon pudding cake become two-layered?

One day I was testing a recipe and made a cake with whipped egg whites as the leavening and binding agent. The batter was a little weird and thin, but I baked it anyway. I took the cake out and was disappointed. The top was beautiful, perfectly golden and bouncy. But an inch below the surface was a dense mess. I hadn’t added enough egg white to lighten and lift the batter, so the airy part was floating on top of the rest. That The cake was a failure. The lemon pudding cake, however, exploits this mistake as a technique.

Lemon pudding cake batter is watery, with a seemingly minimal amount of flour used for a cake. Then you gently fold in the whipped egg whites before pouring them into the cake pan. What you’ll probably notice is that even though the egg whites are well incorporated, they float on top of the rest of a very liquid and viscous batter. This batter happens to be lemon juice, sugar, butter, egg yolks, and a tiny bit of flour. These, my baking friends, are the basic elements of lemon curd.

The egg-leavened lemon curd bakes into a light cake, and the runny batter bakes into a sweet, tangy, pudding-like curd you know and love. The only slight challenge you have to deal with is setting up a double boiler so the curd can gently set. It’s worth the effort.

Credits: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

I wanted a recipe with individual portions, so this recipe will make enough for five 170g ramekins. If you’re not keen on small portions, this recipe can be made in a single cake tin or small baking dish, provided you have a larger dish to accommodate it (for the bain-marie). The cake is pleasantly lemony, not too tart, and doesn’t need decorating – the lemon curd underneath scratches the icing itch. It’s absolutely delicious eaten warm or as a fresh snack straight from the fridge.

Mini Lemon Pudding Cakes Recipe

Ingredients:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Place five 6-ounce (170g) ramekins in a 13 x 9-inch (33 x 23cm) baking dish. Butter the ramekins and leave them in the dish. Meanwhile, heat a kettle of water until boiling.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, lemon juice, lemon zest and butter. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar and salt. Reserve the milk.

3. Slowly stir in half of the sugar mixture, then half of the milk. Then stir in the remaining sugar mixture, then the remaining milk.

4. Whisk the egg whites in another bowl until stiff. soft peaksTry to keep them soft; if they are over-whipped, they can be difficult to incorporate into this liquid batter. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. I did this in four additions.

5. Using a small ladle or large dish, divide the batter between the ramekins. Don’t just scoop from the top. Be sure to start at the bottom of the bowl so you get both sides of the batter.

6. Place the large dish containing the ramekins in the oven, then pour the boiling water into the outer dish. The water should come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake the cakes for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the tops are cooked, golden brown, and starting to pull away from the sides.

Carefully remove the ramekins from the bath and let cool on a wire rack for at least 15 minutes before serving.