Lemon Pudding Cake

Citrus Sunday

Di, from Di's Kitchen Notebook sent out an invitation to participate in her seasonal event, Citrus Sunday, where we could choose any recipe we wanted as long as it included citrus. How could I resist this? The citrus trees here are loaded with fruit and seeing them just puts you in the mood for anything citrus. Unfortunately, my one lone citrus tree - my Meyer Lemon - isn't bearing fruit right now. In fact, it is just barely putting out little buds. The lemons from my tree did, however, finally ripen in December and I saved some of the juice by freezing it. I had already used the zest, but I did have some 'regular' lemons that I could use for the zest. 

As those of you who read my blog know, I have been cooking and baking through three different cookbooks, and as a result it hasn't given me a lot of time to try recipes from my other cookbooks, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to try a recipe from another book. I found the perfect recipe in Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell's, Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook: Lemon Pudding Cake.  I was really intrigued when I read the intro to the recipe and it said "...as it bakes it separates into a cake layer {on top} and pudding on the bottom."

Since I wanted to use some of my meyer lemon juice that I had in the freezer for this recipe, it meant that I needed to use the zest from two other lemons. I saved the juice from the zested lemons to use later. 

The rest of the recipe comes together easily. The most difficult part, and it is really not difficult - you just need to be gentle - is to fold beaten egg whites into the batter. This really makes the batter light.

The recipe suggested using an 8-inch square baking dish, but I wanted to make individual portions, so I used ramekins instead.

If you use ramekins, it makes it easier to pour the batter if you use a mixing bowl that has a pour spout.

A couple of my ramekins are larger than the others and they browned more on the top and cracked open during baking. These were done at 30 minutes.

And since they had little craters on the top, I decided to dress my little pudding cakes with whipped cream and a little zest curl before serving, but it was really for their photo shoot. This is purely optional because they taste wonderful without the cream. I thought this would merely be a good recipe, but I was not prepared for just how wonderful it really is. When you dig into these, you slice through the top layer which is a light lemon cake and then you dip into the luscious lemon pudding. Mmmm.... I honestly can't remember when I have tasted anything so light, creamy, and lemony. This is an absolutely perfect dessert. As John was scraping the last bits of pudding cake from his ramekin, he declared, "This is very, very good!" We both promptly ate two more while they were still warm.

Thank you, Di, for hosting such a fun event! Please visit Di's Kitchen Notebook to see what the rest of the bakers did for Citrus Sunday. With all the citrus I have on hand, I am looking forward to trying some tested citrus recipes.

Lemon Pudding Cake (adapted from Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook)

1 tablespoon lemon zest (two lemons)

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup milk

1/3 cup lemon juice (from about two lemons)

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

3 large eggs

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease 8 ramekins. 

2. Put a tea kettle of water on to boil.

3. In a large bowl, preferably one with a pour spout, combine the sugar and the lemon zest. Infuse the sugar with the zest by mashing the zest into the sugar. 

4. Whisk in the flour, and then add the milk, lemon juice, heavy cream, melted butter, and egg yolks. Whisk until smooth.

5. In another bowl, beat the egg whites with the salt until they are foamy. Slowly add the tablespoon of sugar and beat until soft peaks form. Fold about 1/4 of the egg whites into the flour mixture just to lighten the batter. Gently fold in the rest of the egg whites. 

6. Get a large roasting pan and set the ramekins into the pan. Pour the batter into the ramekins.

7. Using oven mitts, pull out the oven rack and set the roasting pan on it. Your water should be ready now. Carefully pour the boiling water into the pan and be careful you don't get any into the ramekins or dish. Pour until the water level is about half-way up the sides of the ramekins or dish.

7. Bake ramekins for 30 minutes or until the tops are golden brown. If you use the 8-inch square baking dish, bake for 40 minutes.