Recipe: Classic Lemon Cake Pudding in a Jiffy!

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With so many international desserts making their presence felt on restaurant menus in India, chefs and foodies sometimes tend to overlook the simplicity of classic desserts. They may not need exotic ingredients or complex cooking methods, and they may not elicit a lot of educated conversation about global cuisine at the dinner table, but a mere taste and you’re transported to a different era where good food was simply about, well, good food.

For me, lemon cake pudding brings to mind family dinners without TV sets, endless refills of tea with friends while you nibble on something sweet or just the warm glow of a sunny morning. You may think I’m trying to be poetic, but just a spoonful of this pudding will make you a believer. Trust me.

Lemon cake pudding basically consists of a top layer of delicate cake, below which you have a gooey lemon custard/sauce… it’s sensational. And best of all, you can make it using basic ingredients that you’ll always have in your pantry.

Ingredients

All purpose flour (maida) – ¼ cup 
Sugar (granulated or castor sugar) – ¾ cup (as per your taste)
Salt – ¼ tsp
Lemon or orange rind – 1 Tbsp
Lemon juice (a combination of lemon and orange juice go very well together) – ¼ cup
Egg yolks (well-beaten) – 2
Milk – 1 cup
Egg whites (stiffly beaten) – 2 

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius

2. Blend flour, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl.

3. Stir in milk and eggs and mix well. Then add lemon juice and lemon rind

4. Fold in the egg whites by using the cut and fold method. Alternately, just put your hand mixer on the lowest speed and mix the egg whites into the batter till well-combined. If using the hand mixer, don’t over beat the egg whites in the batter lest they deflate. This mixing is being done only to combine the egg whites and the batter together and not to incorporate more air.

5. Pour into a 7” x 4” square dish or into six custard bowls. Please note that there is no need to grease the baking dish or the custard bowls for this recipe.

6. Put the dish in a pan of water called a water bath (watch to video to see how it’s done). The water should cover the dish halfway. Bake it in the water bath for about 25-30 minutes or till it is delicately brown on top. If baking in custard cups, the baking time would come down to 15-20 minutes or till it is delicately brown on the top.

7. Let it cool for 20 minutes before serving. It tastes best when warm or at room temperature.

Things to watch out for

– Preheat the oven for 20 minutes for better results.

– While grating the rind, do it gentlyy as we only want the top layer of the skin and not the white part of the peel which will make the pudding bitter.

– Strain the lemon juice or orange juice you are using to avoid seeds from the fruit making it into your pudding.

– If the eggs are dirty, please wash them well before separating the yolks from the whites. To wash the eggs, immerse them in a bowl of water for five minutes. Then gently clean the dirt by rubbing them with a kitchen towel. Then rewash them under the tap. Pat dry with a kitchen towel before separating the eggs.

– While beating the egg whites, please use a dry, clean bowl. If the bowl is not dry, the egg whites will not achieve the stiff consistency we need. If water happens to spill into the bowl, restart with fresh egg whites in a fresh dry bowl.