Warm Lemon Pudding Cakes

Hi Jenn,
I love, love, love all of your recipes. I have made many of them, and they are all standouts. I am going to make your lemon pudding cakes for a dinner party. I’d like to make the batter in advance of our guests’ arrival, and then put in the oven when we sit down to dinner. My question is: will the eggs whites go flat if the batter is made a couple of hours in advance? Or should I bake and reheat per your directions? Thanks much!

Wow! just made three ramekins using 2 medium eggs and half of the rest of the ingredients – except sugar, which I further cut in half (could even reduce further since I like things tart)! YUM. I referenced other reviews and substituted almond flour. What a forgiving and delicious recipe! Eager to make this keto and think that will be easy using monk fruit sweetener, cream, and almond flour. Perfect last minute company dessert!

Dear Chef Jenn,

I tried this recipe today to serve for dessert after our dinner with an invited neighbor at our home. I used whole fat milk and followed your recipe to the T, except the baking time. I used my turbo setting on my oven and set it for just 30 minutes at first, however, I noticed while they’re baking that the browning wasn’t even. I had to open the oven twice to turn my pan so they can bake evenly. I’m aware that by doing so, I was losing heat since I had to do it slowly because of the water in the pan. Each time that I opened the oven, I added a few more minutes to the timer and continued on with preparing my other dishes.

Well, good thing that I looked again and did not wait for the timer to go off because by the time I checked again, it was way more than just “lightly golden on the top!” It wasn’t burnt at all, but, I was really concern about how the pudding at the bottom will come out and if the cake will be dry. Because of my concerns and fear that I messed it up and couldn’t serve it, I did not wait for 20 minutes for it to cool down to taste it. My thought process was, in the event that it was truly beyond saving let alone serving it to our guest, I still have time to come up with another quick dessert or start over again!

Armed with 2 spoons and anxiety at the pit of my stomach, I called my boyfriend urgently to the kitchen so we both can taste it at the same time, and warned him ahead of time of the possibility that I overbaked them. My boyfriend by the way has a sweet tooth, loves, loves, all kinds of desserts, but, lemon flavor is at the top of his many favorites. Nervously, I dug in gingerly into the dessert and at the same time, taking a very close look at the top texture and its entirety. The deeper my spoon got in, my anxiety built up more because I noticed that there wasn’t a whole lot of pudding at the bottom. My heart sank needless to say as I brace myself for what my boyfriend’s one word be to describe it, “dry!”

I watched him as he eagerly spoon a big chunk of it into his mouth as I was putting mine into my mouth. The minute the warmth and tartness of the cake touched my palate, I saw stars in front of me, lots of them! I giddily held my excitement back to wait for my boyfriend’s comment, and all I heard was one word – WOW! He then looked at me like a kid who was just handed an ice cream cone for the first time with big eyes and said, “Wow, oh wow! That is insanely good and it taste just like your lemon meringue pie without the crust!” Needless to say, I only had that one teeny bitty bite and he polished off the rest of the cake before he had dinner.

As soon as our dinner was over, he gleefully stood up and exclaimed to our guest who also has a sweet tooth and loves lemon meringue pie as well, “I can’t wait for you to have her dessert, and I’m sure you’ll love it!” To make my already long story shorter, they both inhaled their cakes in less than 2 minutes in between groans and moans, then, they glared at me as I very slowly savor every small bites at a time of my cake. I glared back to both of them and scolded them, “Did you two even taste it as fast as you both devoured it???” The answer was, “Nope, that’s why we’re ready for seconds!” My math says, one batch made 6 remekins and we ate one as a sample. All three of us had one each, first. That’s 6 – 4 = 2 left, then, minus 2 for their second helping. I voiced out to both of them that they both had 2 each and I had one, and what’s wrong with this picture? “That’s because you only made one batch of 6, duh! And they’re small remekins! Which means, you need to make more because it definitely tasted like, MORE – please, pretty please???”

I was, having a very nice and civilized dinner with both mature male adults or so I thought, until dessert time. Can you guess by now what I will be making tomorrow as soon as I wake up? Yep, triple batch of this wonderful dessert so that my neighbor can have half of them just for himself and the other half for my boyfriend! What’s wrong with this picture, again???

I very seldom write comments about recipes let alone a long one for that matter, but, as a Chef (retired) myself, I know too well how much work, time, and money it takes to create recipes, re-recreate it over and over again until its perfected, take photos, write descriptions, spell-check it, etc., then finally share them. I am also aware that more often than not, destructive criticisms are what you get more of, than being thanked and grateful for all your hard work and kindness for sharing them, for free. I am truly grateful, thankful, and admire you for doing so. I myself have an Arsenal and collections of original recipes I’ve created, but, after reading soooooo many derogatory, destructive, and condescending comments of a recipe that was shared for free, I chose to keep them all locked up and they will only be seen IF I ever write a cookbook, maybe.

Again, thank you, thank you very much, for sharing your awesome, low fat, decadent, luscious, lemon-heavenly, sexy, sinfully indulgent, and delicious dessert, Chef Jenn!

Sincerely,
Chef*SaraP