A creamy sweet lemon custard cake- the perfect dessert
This lemon custard cake is almost like a light souffle. I don’t know if this is a true lemon souffle, I do know it is delicious, smooth, lemony, creamy, and drool worthy. I am drooling over the thought of it right now. If you love anything lemony, you will love this dessert. If you are not into lemon desserts you are missing out, most definitely. I highly recommend if you are willing to try a lemon dessert, make this lemon custard cake as your first. I think it will convert you.
We are blessed because we have a lemon tree in our front yard – our orchard is in the front yard because that is where all the space is. Our tree is a Meyer Lemon which is a bit sweeter than most lemons. It is just a little guy but it has given us numerous lemons over the years to make some of our favorite lemon desserts and even fresh lemonade.
This past Christmas season, we lost a 50 foot pine tree. The pine had been leaning and Craig and I had been talking about taking it down but we just had not gotten around to it. One night I heard a loud thump but didn’t really think anything of it. Craig left for work in the early, dark morning hours so he did not see anything. But as I went wandering in the front yard I looked and thought something looks really wrong here. You see, I could only see lots of pine branches and not much else. I wandered around to the street side and discovered the pine had come down, smashing a good part of our fruit trees and leaving a very large hole and massive roots upturned. I thought we had loss our whole orchard!
Luckily we have a good friend who removes trees for a living and he came assessed the situation and a couple days later had everything chipped up and removed. Upon further evaluation we had only completely loss our apricot tree, the peach trees were severely damaged, and our sweet lemon suffered some shock but overall was mostly intact. I gathered the little lemons that had been plummeted to the ground, juiced them, froze the juice in baggies, and also made lemon custard cake If you have any desire to see the fallen tree visit my personal blog “musings of my mind”
Lemon Custard Cake
Ingredients
- 2 TBS butter plus butter for greasing ramekins (room temperataure)
- 3 eggs (yolks and whites separated)
- 1 cup white sugar (divided)
- 1 TBS lemon zest
- 1/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup milk
- 2/3 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
- 2 TBS powdered sugar
Equipment
- Large Mixing Bowl
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- On the center rack place a roasting pan with high sides
- Lightly butter 4 to 5 small ramekins or 3 medium ramekins or 1- 1.5 baking dish
- Bring 8 to 10 cups water to a simmer in a pot over your stovetop - this will be used in the roasting pan later
- In a large mixing bowl add the 2TBS of butter and the 1 cup of sugar minus 2 TBS of sugar, cream together with a hand mixer
- Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating after each addition
- Add the lemon zest and beat in
- Add the flour and salt and mix in
- Add the milk and lemon juice and beat in until well combined
- Set this bowl aside if using a hand mixer, if you are using your stand mixer put the lemon mix into another bowl and clean your stand mixer bowl well and dry completely before using with the egg whites. If using a hand mixer, clean your beaters and dry completely before beat the egg whites.
- Put the egg whites into a bowl and beat until soft peaks are beginning to form
- Add the 2 TBS sugar and beat again until stiff/firm peaks form
- Carefully spoon the egg whites into the lemon/yolk/milk mixture
- Ever so gently fold the egg whites into the lemon/yolk/milk mixture until they are completely mixed in and there are no large bits of egg white
- Ladle your batter into the ramekins or baking dish
- Set the ramekins or baking dish into your roasting pan
- Carefully as to not splash or spill pour the 8 to 10 cups of simmer water into the roasting pan to halfway up the sides of the ramekins or baking dish
- Bake for 30 minutes for small ramekins to 45 minutes for the baking dish, don't over bake and watch carefully the top will be firm and golden but not brown
- Remove from oven and cool on rack for 10 minutes
- Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve warm
Enjoy this delicious light and refreshing lemon custard cake for a tasty dessert. What is your favorite lemon dessert?
This recipe was adapted from Seasons & Suppers.
Sherry Baines says
At what point Is 2TBS of butter added. Have read recipe twice?
Ellen says
At step 5. Now as I reread the instructions I can see the confusion. I will rewrite the step hoping to make it clearer. It is meant to say add the butter and sugar minus the 2 TBS of sugar and cream the sugar and butter together. I hope that made sense. Let me know if you make the custard cake and how it turns out for you.
Christine Eva says
This lemon custard cake was made by my grandmother almost 100 years ago. She called it ‘Lemon Souffle’. The ingredients are exactly the same. Wonderful dessert. We use cream or whipped cream as a topping. 🙂
sylvieamesee says
This lemon custard cake looks just terrific! What I love best is that it sounds airy thanks to the egg whites and that’s fabulous.
Melissa says
O.K. It’s me again. I just made this, and it was delicious! So light, and super lemony!
Ellen Garrett says
Melissa, I am so glad you had whole eggs and were able to make this lemon custard cake. But I am especially happy that you enjoyed it. It is definitely one of my favorites.
I have eggs on my grocery list to buy tonight.
Melissa says
Oh darn. I just read the recipe more closely and realized I needed egg whites, too. That’s o.k. I have plenty of whole eggs, too 🙂
Melissa says
I have been totally wanting a recipe like this! Kind of like a molten lava cake, but with lemons! And I just happen to have three egg yolks in the fridge right now that need to be used. It’s perfect! Thanks so much for the recipe!
Amber @ Dessert Now, Dinner Later! says
Yum! The gooey lemon center is killing me! I would love one of these!
Kelly - Life Made Sweeter says
That’s so cool that you have a Meyer lemon tree! Meyer lemons are my favorite and I love that you made a custard cake with them. It looks fantastic!
Ellen Garrett says
Thanks Kelly, I hope you like it. We feel very blessed to have the many fruit trees that we have. We kind of stumbled upon getting the Meyer Lemon tree, I think it was all that was available when we were citrus tree shopping.
Joanne B says
This looks absolutely delicious.
Ellen Garrett says
Thanks Joanne, after you make it let me know what you think. I loved it. May have to make it again this weekend.