Enjoy a traditional Irish lemon pudding for dessert!
Here’s a St. Patrick’s day recipe that isn’t green or rainbow-colored! While the festive colors can be fun, I think it is cool to mix things up with traditional Irish foods too. Try this Irish Lemon Pudding recipe for a dessert and the delicious Irish Brown Bread with dinner!
My husband was recently in AZ for work and he came home with a box of freshly picked, huge lemons and grapefruit! Now I want a lemon tree! We made fresh lemonade a few times and used some of the lemons for this recipe.
Irish lemon pudding is not overly sweet, but just enough so. It is perfect sprinkled with powdered sugar and served with sweetened whipped cream. It has a unique texture because the batter separates as it bakes – the top layer is a cake and the bottom layer is like a custard. Yum!
This dessert is so simple, the recipe only calls for 6 ingredients – butter, sugar, eggs, flour, lemons, and milk. That’s it!
The original recipe calls for the juice and zest of 2 lemons (without measurements). I found that the average lemon yields about 2-3 tablespoons of juice and about 1 tablespoon of zest. I use just over 1/4 cup lemon juice for this recipe. So hopefully that info helps you out if you have mondo lemons or if need to use bottled lemon juice for some reason!
The lemon mixture is pretty soupy and thin, but thickens up a bit when you fold in the stiff egg whites.
You can pour the batter into an 8- or 9-inch pie plate, cake pan, loaf pan, ramekins, or double the recipe and pour it into a 9-inch springform pan. The springform and ramekins make for a prettier presentation and yummy thick layers. Since I like the thicker layers, I would double the recipe if I use any of the larger pans. (Some people like it with orange instead of lemon too. Sounds like a fun twist!)
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs, separated
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 lemons, zested and juiced (1/4-1/3 cup juice, 2 tablespoons zest)
- 1 1/4 cup milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Cream the butter and sugar well. Add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing after each addition. Then add the flour, then lemon zest, and juice. Whisk in the milk and mix well.
- In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold gently into the lemon mixture until incorporated.
- Pour into an 8- or 9-inch pie plate or cake pan, or evenly among four 1-cup ramekins. Bake for about 40 minutes, until very lightly browned and mostly set. You can use a toothpick to see if top cake layer is done, but remember that the bottom should be like custard.
- Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve warm with sweetened whipped cream.
Notes
For thicker layers, double the recipe and use a 9-inch pan or springform.
This recipe is adapted from Irish Traditional Cooking and The Baker Upstairs.
I love my handy ZestNest for recipes like this one.