Gluten-Free Lemon Pudding Cake (enjoy warm or cold)
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
A delicious, fresh and light lemon dessert, with a creamy, warm lemon pudding on the bottom, a soft sponge-like middle and a crusted top. Tart, luscious and subtly sweet.
Author:
Recipe type: Dessert
Serves: Serves 4
Ingredients
  • Zest of 2 lemons
  • 2 eggs, ideally brought to room temperature (set them out on the counter 20 minutes ahead of time if you can)
  • 2 Tbsp butter, softened
  • ⅓ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
  • ½ cup coconut palm sugar (or granulated sugar of choice, brown sugar works fine)
  • 1 slightly rounded Tbsp almond flour
  • 2 flat Tbsp tapioca flour
  • 1 cup 2% or whole milk (I tyipically have 2% on hand)
  • Fresh berries for serving or warmed frozen berries, as desired
Instructions
  1. Heat oven to 350 F.
  2. In a small bowl combine almond and tapioca flours and set aside.
  3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together lemon zest, egg yolks, butter and sugar. Add lemon juice, followed by flour mixture and milk, mixing to combine.
  4. In a separate mixing bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks/indentations form; fold into batter.
  5. Pour pudding cake batter into a baking dish (see notes for size/dish pref) and then place baking dish into a larger dish - add boiling water to the larger dish such that it comes up about 1 inch (2.5 cm) along the sides of the dish. The "water bath" method is used to prevent the pudding cake from drying out while baking - it also minimizes cracking and over-browning the top layer. - it makes a difference and is worth the small extra step.
  6. Place pudding cake with pan in middle rack of oven and bake for approximately 35-40 minutes - the surface should be taking on a nice golden color and the cake top just firm to the touch. If you see that the cake is over-browning while baking (oven heat varies), you can loosely tent with foil.
  7. Remove pudding cake from oven and allow it to cool on a rack for about 10 minutes.
  8. Scoop pudding cake into individual serving dishes or bowls and top with fresh or warmed frozen berries and/or cream/ice cream as desired etc. Or simply enjoy the pudding on its own, it's delicious that way too!
  9. You can also refrigerate and serve this dessert cold according to preference.
Notes
Type & Size of Dish: I like to use a gratin dish (oval baking dish) for this recipe as opposed to a circular soufflé dish because it increases the surface area when baking to create that nice crust. You want one large enough to accommodate about 1 quart (32 ounces/4 cups - the one I use measures about 2" x 9.5" (interior length) x 7") but you don't want to go much larger than this otherwise your pudding cake will be too thin and possibly dry. Changing the dimension of the dish will change the consistency of the pudding - 1 quart is ideal here.
Gluten-Free: this pudding cake was developed as a gluten-free recipe; if you prefer, you can substitute ¼ cup spelt flour (a whole grain related to wheat) that works well in baking or a white whole wheat flour (that retains the nutritional advantages of traditional whole wheat flour while being lighter weight) or simply AP flour (as you wish) in place of the almond/tapioca combination. I don't recommend traditional whole wheat for this particular recipe due to its weight/density.
Recipe by Inspired Edibles at https://www.inspirededibles.ca/2017/03/warm-lemon-pudding-cake.html