Lemon Pudding Cake
Lemon Pudding Cake. An ultimate lemon comfort food dessert that combines a bright, flavourful lemon cake baked on top of a tart, tangy, but not too sweet lemon sauce.
This lemon pudding cake recipe comes as the result of quite a bit of trial and error. However, this recipe is a successful attempt to replicate one of my childhood favourites.
Back then we would have used a packaged mix for this, which I loved at the time. But nowadays, I never use package mixes for anything.
I've spent years avoiding preservatives and artificial flavours. To be honest, nothing comes close to the natural bright, tangy taste of real lemon.
Lemon Pudding Cake. Getting the recipe right.
I tried several recipes for lemon pudding cake where the lemon and sugar mixture are sprinkled on top of the batter and then boiling water gets poured over the top. I did however find that method got mixed results.
Sometimes the sauce was too thick, sometimes lumpy. Sometimes the appearance of the top of the pudding was not the best and the cake was too rubbery and not cake-like.
I decided that the best way to approach this was to treat the two elements separately and bake it in the same manner as you would a cobbler. This worked very well indeed and with a minimal amount of extra effort to prepare the sauce separately.
Spouse and I, who are both avid lemon lovers knew we had to share this pudding as soon as we took the first bite... otherwise we would have been tempted to eat the whole thing!
We shared it with a couple of friends, including our lemon loving friend Barb who called immediately after it was delivered. She was in full lemon swoon.
Any leftovers are easily reheated in the microwave the next day... if there are any leftovers, because everyone will want a second helping of this delectable dessert!
Originally published Oct 2016.
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Lemon Pudding Cake
Lemon Pudding Cake - an ultimate lemon comfort food dessert that combines a bright, flavourful lemon cake baked on top of a tart, tangy, but not too sweet lemon sauce.
Ingredients
For the Lemon Sauce
- 1 ¼ cups sugar
- pinch salt
- 2 tablespoon corn starch
- 3 egg yolks
- juice of 2 large lemons. Remove the zest from both lemons before juicing them. Half the zest will go the sauce and half will go in the cake.
- zest of one large lemon, very finely minced
- 1 ½ cups water
- 4 tablespoon butter, not margarine
For the Lemon Cake
- ⅓ cup butter
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- zest of one large lemon, finely minced
- 1 ½ cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ cup milk
Instructions
To prepare the lemon sauce
- In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, salt and cornstarch.
- While still off the heat, whisk in the egg yolks.
- Add the lemon juice, zest and water and place over medium low heat.
- Bring this mixture to a boil stirring constantly. I find that a silicone spatula best for this because you can continuously scrape the entire bottom of the pan, making sure that the sauce thickens evenly and doesn't stick or burn.
- Once it is boiling continue to boil for one minute, then take it off the heat and stir in the butter, a tablespoon at a time until smooth.
- Pour into an ungreased 8 cup casserole dish or a pan of similar size that is about 4 inches deep.
- Set aside while you prepare the cake batter
To prepare the lemon cake batter
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the egg and beat well.
- Beat in the vanilla extract and lemon zest
- Sift together the flour and baking powder.
- Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. In general, I add the dry ingredients in 3 portions and the milk in 2 additions.
- Drop the batter by rounded tablespoons, closely together, all over the surface of the lemon sauce.
- Once all the batter is in the dish you can gently smooth out the surface of the batter with the back of a tablespoon.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 40-45 minute or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the centre comes put clean.
- Let the pudding sit for about 15minutes to cool down slightly and let the sauce thicken a little.
- Serve in cereal sized bowls or dessert dishes.
Notes
People ask me what I mean by finely minced lemon zest. My method is to use the fine side of a box grater placed on a cutting board to remove all of the zest from the lemon while avoiding as much of the bitter white part of the peel as possible. I then take a chefs knife and continue to to chop the finely grated zest into small bits. Using this method, I rarely ever strain a lemon curd or sauce through a sieve after it is cooked. The zest left in a sauce or lemon curd intensifies the lemon flavour greatly without really interrupting the smooth consistency.
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Nutrition Information
Yield
12Serving Size
gAmount Per Serving Calories 336Total Fat 13gSaturated Fat 7gTrans Fat 1gUnsaturated Fat 5gCholesterol 90mgSodium 213mgCarbohydrates 53gFiber 2gSugar 35gProtein 4g
The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.
Hi Barry,
I just love you so much! You're my 'go to' website for cooking almost everything and baking EVERYTHING!! To me, your recipes are the BEST!
I have used the carnation milk like you said to substitute in cake mixes and I thought u said to dilute it. Sometimes I do and sometimes if it's only a 1/3 or 1/2 a cup I don't. I'm just unclear what I'm supposed to do for sure but for example, my lamingtons for some reason cave in the middle about an inch and a half square all the way around my 9x11 pan and the center is way undercooked, maybe I put too much undiluted evap milk?
This recipe can I sub evaporated milk and should I dilute it 50/50?
I don't care if the middles come out cooked or not I make it work and try again because I just absolutely LUVLUVLUV that recipe! I use raspberry jam/ jello and I tried to fill the centers w your marshmallow frosting but I'm not a skilled enough baker at all!! Do u have any tips or could you possibly make a cream filled lamington? Here in the USA as a kid I ate what we called 'zingers'... and your lamingtons are it if they had the cream filling, kinda like a Twinkie ...
Thank you for your lovely recipes and your time reading and responding!
Sincerely,
Vicki
Sorry for not talking about this delicious lemon pudding cake here so here goes..: I've made it several times now and like everything else I've tried of yours it's over the top delicious and the perfect comfort food! My only issue w this particular recipe is the time. To get the liquid ( pudding) to boil at med/ low takes FOREVER! Lol it literally takes me several hours to make this but I don't mind because it's sooo very good! Again, tyvvm!
Vicki, turn up your stove a bit and just make sure to continually scrape the bottom. It shouldn't take that long! I admire your dedication though, lol
I loved this dessert, and so did all of our guests! It turned out perfectly.
Thank you!
Looks yummy! i will have to try this one day, awesome!
The recipe says to use the juice from the second lemon in the cake batter.....I just can not see the directions to add the lemon juice.
Refers to the zest, not the juice. I've updated the recipe for clarity.
Can the sauce be cooked in the microwave?
Never done that.
This looks so nice I will make it weekend
How does this taste cold? Can I make it ahead and serve it the next day. Should I refrigerate this or not?
It is meant to be served warm. It does not appeal to me as a cold dish.
OHHHH. It is almost lemon season here!!!! This looks like a gotta try this one!
Looks delicious and l will try it. However l cannot have milk, can l use almond milk instead?
That should be fine.
Barry why can't I just prepare a box of lemon pie filling and pour my cake batter over that??
@bernadette, sounds like a great idea. Did you ever try it? How about purchased lemon curd, thinned a bit?
I can’t wait to try this recipe because of my love for lemons! This recipe looks & sounds delicious. Barry thank u for all of ur hard work! It’s always so exciting to try ur recipes!!!
Barry, could I just prepare a lemon pie filling for the sauce and pour the cake batter over it?? I would love to receive an answer from you.
Thanks
bernadette
We did not get many desserts growing up- BUT this lemon pudding cake was on a regular Sunday night rotation in our house. I have not made it in years (My mom's original recipe) I will take her recipe out and compare to your's, pretty sure they will be the same. Thanks for the "Sunday night' dessert reminder. I'm going to put this back in to my rotation.
This sounds delicious. I’ve never had a problem with my over 50 year old recipe where you fold the egg whites into the batter and it creates its own sauce when baked, however, I want to try this recipe. I think it will have a more intense lemon flavour.
I use a micro plane zester. Never have needed to strain my sauces.
could this be made with lemon curd?
Possibly, might need a little waster t thin it if it is too thick.