Looking for a refreshing spring dessert that’s as easy as it is delicious? Look no further than lemon pudding cake, which has only a handful of ingredients — all of which you likely already have in your fridge and cupboards.
This lemon pudding cake recipe from Allrecipes doesn’t call for instant pudding mix. Instead, it combines eggs, lemon juice, lemon zest, butter, sugar, flour, salt and milk, which results in a dessert that looks like cake on the outside, but has a pudding-like consistency inside. To make the lemon pudding cake, you simply mix together some of the ingredients, then beat egg whites until stiff, eventually blending them with the rest of the mixture. Once the batter is ready, pour it into a pan and bake it in a bain-marie, or hot water bath, for 45 minutes.
With 179 ratings, the recipe has 4 out of 5 stars. Reviewers say it is easy to make: a new favorite dessert that’s fluffy and light yet thick. One reviewer said the cake has a “nice gooey sauce at bottom of dish, intense lemon flavor and perfect sponge cake on top.”
A handful of reviewers suggest adding more lemon juice and lemon zest than the recipe calls for, but only if you want a stronger lemon flavor. Other bakers suggest cutting down on the sugar a bit or substituting the lemon and dairy milk for something else, like lime and coconut milk.
You can read the full recipe at Allrecipes.
Because it’s a perfect spring flavor, there are dozens of dessert recipes that use lemon, from cakes and cheesecakes to sweet rolls and breads.
Sticking first with more desserts, these lemon cream cheese bars call for a few key ingredients. You’ll simply layer crescent roll dough with a mixture of lemon zest, lemon juice, cream cheese, and sugar spread on top of the dough. Another layer of crescent dough is next, which is then covered in butter and sugary lemon zest before baking.
You can also make lemon angel food cake, lemon blondies, lemon layer cake with lemon cream cheese buttercream, lemon blueberry poke cake and strawberry lemon blondies, which use fresh strawberries and freshly squeezed lemon juice.
For a non-cake dessert, a lemon cheesecake mousse is light and fresh and tastes like spring in a cup. The mousse has just four simple ingredients and takes only 10 minutes to put together. All you need is heavy whipping cream, cream cheese, powdered sugar and lemon juice. You can also garnish the mousse with lemon slices, lemon zest, blueberries and mint leaves.
If you’ll be putting the mousse into individual cups, you could also make a crust with crushed graham crackers, sugar and salted butter that you’ll simply press into the bottom of the cup.
If you’re looking for sweet lemon flavors, but not necessarily desserts, check out these recipes for blueberry lemon monkey bread, blueberry-lemon ricotta pound cake, lemon sweet rolls and Ina Garten’s lemon yogurt cake.
The lemon yogurt cake recipe uses yogurt to soften the dish into a dessert that’s airy and light. While the recipe calls for plain whole milk yogurt, you can also substitute plain Greek yogurt if you’re looking to cut some sugar and add protein. You’ll also need fresh lemon juice, freshly grated lemon zest, sugar, eggs, flour, salt, vanilla, baking powder and vegetable oil, but you can also replace the oil with unsweetened applesauce to make it a bit healthier.
If you decide to use applesauce, Food Network suggests swapping just half the oil for applesauce so that the applesauce flavor does not overpower the lemon and other flavors of the cake.
For an adult-only lemon treat, RumChata makes a Limón flavor that you can drink straight, over ice or mixed with vodka or coffee. Made with Caribbean rum, cream, vanilla and lemon, RumChata Limón has a fresh and creamy finish.
Try it in the RumChata Breakfast in Bed, which combines two parts of RumChata Limón with one part blueberry vodka, or the Lemon Latte Martini, which combines 2 ounces of RumChata Limón with 1 ounce vanilla vodka and cold brew coffee.
Do you have a favorite lemon dessert or another lemon-flavored treat?
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