It’s a little bit pudding and a little bit cake, all in one recipe. I was first awed by this lemon pudding-cake when I went to a pastry conference at the CIA and met the pastry chef from Craft, Karen Demasco. She served this dessert; made up of a layer of tangy lemon curd baked on top of a sweet delicate cake. They were clearly baked as one, but the two layers were so distinct in appearance and taste. I fell in love. When Karen wrote a book last year I was so excited to see this recipe in it! I have made it with lime juice, grapefruit and even passionfruit juices.
You can use six to eight ramekins for this batch, depending on how tall you want your cake to stand.
Lemon Pudding-Cake
Find the full recipe at the bottom of this post!
To prepare the lemon pudding-cake: Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
Prepare six to eight 6-Ounce Ramekins
In a bowl mix together the flour, 3/4 cup sugar and salt. Rub the zest into the flour mixture. Set aside.
Whisk together the buttermilk, lemon juice and egg yolks. Set aside.
Beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon sugar until just soft peaks. Be sure not to over beat or they will be grainy and not incorporate into the batter well.
Add the flour mixture to the buttermilk/lemon mixture. Whisk until well incorporated.
Add the egg whites 1/3 at a time and fold them in with a rubber spatula.
Ladle the batter into the prepared ramekins. Fill the roasting pan with hot water up to the middle of the ramekins.
Tent with foil. Bake for 20 minutes and then remove the foil.
Bake for another 20 minutes (50 minutes for the large dish) until the cakes rise up above the ramekins, are golden in color and spring back when you touch the tops and a tester comes out with moist crumb, but not wet.
Let them cool to room temperature (the large version needs to sit until the bottom is room temperature or it will not come out cleanly). The pudding-cakes can be served warm, room temperature or even chilled. They can be made ahead and stored in the ramekins until serving time. If you serve them chilled the pudding will be a bit denser, but still lovely.
Run a sharp paring knife around the edge.
Invert onto the plate.
Video
Ingredients
- Soft butter for ramekins
- 1 cup (240ml) buttermilk (fat free or low fat)
- 1/4 cup (60ml) lemon juice (Meyer lemon, lime or grapefruit juices are also great) (or a combination of the three)
- 4 large eggs separated
- 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon (42g) all-purpose flour (spoon and sweep into the measuring cup)
- 3/4 cup sugar (160g), plus 1 tablespoon for whipping whites (12g) – (plus more for ramekins or large dish)
- pinch salt
- Zest of 2 lemons Meyer lemons or 2 limes or 1 grapefruit
Instructions
- To prepare the lemon pudding-cake: Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Prepare six to eight 6-Ounce Ramekin (or one 8 cup soufflé dish) by coating them well with the soft butter and then sugar. Set the ramekins in a roasting pan that has a kitchen towel laid out on the bottom. The towel allows a bit more insulation for the puddings when baked. Set the roasting pan aside.
- In a bowl mix together the flour, 3/4 cup sugar and salt. Rub the zest into the flour mixture. Set aside.
- Whisk together the buttermilk, lemon juice and egg yolks. Set aside.
- Beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon sugar until just soft peaks. Be sure not to over beat or they will be grainy and not incorporate into the batter well.
- Add the flour mixture to the buttermilk/lemon mixture. Whisk until well incorporated.
- Add the egg whites 1/3 at a time and fold them in with a rubber spatula.
- Ladle the batter into the prepared ramekins. Fill the roasting pan with hot water up to the middle of the ramekins. Tent with foil. Bake for 20 minutes and then remove the foil.
- Bake for another 20 minutes (50 minutes for the large dish) until the cakes rise up above the ramekins, are golden in color and spring back when you touch the tops and a tester comes out with moist crumb, but not wet.
- Let them cool to room temperature (the large version needs to sit until the bottom is room temperature or it will not come out cleanly). The pudding-cakes can be served warm, room temperature or even chilled. They can be made ahead and stored in the ramekins until serving time. If you serve them chilled the pudding will be a bit denser, but still lovely.
- Run a sharp paring knife around the edge. Invert onto the plate.
lemon pudding cake is one of my favorite things! these are beautiful and I love the jam on top.
Probably a silly question (maybe I missed the information?) but do you serve these warm? Can you serve them chilled? Can you store them in the dishes until serving? Thanks so much! Can’t wait to try this one!
Hi Jennifer,
I forgot entirely to mention it! I’ve added it now. The answer if yes, to all of the above! 😉
Thanks, Zoë
Is there a way to print a recipe without the accompanying lpictures?
Hi Carol,
No, unless you copy to Word and erase the pictures.
Thanks and enjoy the recipe! Zoë
Thank you Zoe! I’ll be making these for Shabat dinner next week with friends (no need for Kosher, our shabat dinners are just an excuse to get together).
Hope to meet you at Tilia soon,
Alex
Yum. I am going to make these for dinner with friends tonight at your parents’ old house.
Hi Carol,
Have a wonderful time!
Cheers, Zoë
Hi lady,
These look fabulous! Make them and I’ll pair them with SOMETHING for dinner! Deal? 😉
I got all of the jars from Weck directly. They weren’t cheap, but I bought quite a few different sizes at once – and haven’t regretted it since. I love them, and love filling them – especially when I know I can get them back and fill them again! AND, I love seeing what YOU do with them! 😉 xo J
Thanks Jen,
I think I have one of your jars now, I’ll get it back, so you can refill it! 😉
buttermilk–yum. This looks like something I can do!
Barbara, you might check to see if Bernardin (the Canadian version of the Ball and Kerr jars; I believe Bernardin jars are also made by Jarden) has any interesting jars. Check on http://www.freshpreserving.com; I think there’s a link to the Canada site. Also, check closer to home for jar manufacturers. Good luck in the hunt!
Zoe and Bubbles,
Thanks so much for the information. I live in Nova Scotia (east coast of Canada), chances of finding the jars locally are pretty slim! I have emailed Wecks to see if they ship to Canada. We usually visit friends in Maine a few times a year so I could order some to be delivered there. I’ll do some more looking online too. Thanks again!
Wow, these little cakes are lovely! And simple! I have a bunch of lemons just waiting to be used, and some orange marmalade too – so perfect!
I’ll have the cherry, please.
Looks like cherry preserves rather than jam. I know, picky, picky, picky. “-)
The recipe sounds awesome, Zoë. Thank you for sharing it with us.
-B
And for Barbara Robson re jars, do some online searching. This place was the first one that came up: http://www.sks-bottle.com/CanningJars.html and there’s a link that I can see for which I must take them to task. (Concisely, don’t try to can homemade pesto. Please.) I’ve talked to the people at http://www.freundcontainer.com about jars, too.
Barbara, where are you located? In the Twin Cities area, The Container Store has some jars with plastisol-lined lids; my food co-op carries or can get the Bormioli Quattro Stagioni jars. Be aware that anything other than the basic and standard Kerr or Ball jars are quite expensive and hard to find—and expensive to ship if ordering online. It might be worth a trip to Zabar’s in New York, though, to see what they have. 🙂 (Stick with me, Kiddo; I’ve got a million good ideas.)
Thanks Bubbles,
You always come through with the insider information!
Cheers, Zoë
Congratulations for making it to the best of the blogs. Who could resist these sweet and tangy goodness that’s half cake, half pudding all rolled into one delightful recipe? Yummy!
Ramekins come in so many different sizes. Since I don’t want to overcook the cakes, what size/dimension did you use? Thanks.
Hi Eileen,
Oh dear, that is a huge omission! Thank you for catching it. They are 6-ounce ramekins.
Enjoy, Zoë
Lemon pudding cake is one of my family’s favourite desserts but I have never made it in individual ramekins. My recipe calls for ordinary milk but as a fan of buttermilk I am definitely going to give your recipe a try. Thank you so much for the lovely post!
I am new to your site…one word…yummy!! Can’t wait to try some recipes. I make a lot of jams and jellies and I’m always looking for nice jars, can you tell me where to buy the ones in your picture of the 3 jars? Many thanks.
Hi Barbara,
These are great jars, but I don’t think you can get them anywhere but the website? http://www.weckcanning.com/
Thanks, Zoë
How can I resist to this amazing swewtness! I do really want to make it and eat it but, please help me Zoe, I have always the same problem: I don’t have cups, so I need grams. May I give a suggestion to you? When you’ll have time you may post a generical conversion between cups and grams for flour, sugar,butter, oil, ecc, so every recipe is ok. I know that looking around on internet I find the conversions but there are some very strong differences between sites and your recipes are too fantastic to make mistakes. What do you think about my suggestion?
Thank you and congratulations: your blog is my favourite, the first I click on when I come home at the evening. Kisses. Anna
Hi Anna,
I think your suggestion is brilliant, in fact, my husband is working on a conversion app for me right now! I’ll keep you posted on its progress.
Thank you, Zoë
These look so delicious.
I’ve wanted to try a similar recipe for ages but you just made these absolutely irresistible, Zoe! Gorgeous gorgeous photos too.
Oh my! These look sooo delicious!
I know exactly what i am gonna do with this recipe! Thanks sooo much!
Looks like an amazing, simple perfect bite.
My mom made our family a lemon pudding cake just one time more than 20 years ago and I’ve been wanting to try one again ever since. I love the individual portions of this recipe – I think I’ll flag it for Easter. 🙂
It’s taken me nearly 13 years but I’m finally getting around to making these tonight!!
Just a few minutes before I saw this post, I had commented to my husband I needed to get lemons to make a lemon cake. Then- I saw this! Since I have lots of grapefruits, thinking of trying them first.
Now I know what’s on the agenda for tomorrow!
Yummy! I must make this. Thank you so much Zoe.
You make the best bread and cake and sweets, but especially the best carrot cake!
Wow Georgie,
Thank you for the lovely note! Zoë