Lemon Pudding Cakes

This is a dessert I haven't made in a very long time despite the fact that I love citrus desserts and used to enjoy it all the time as a kid. Lemon pudding cake is one of the fancy desserts that I will always associate dinner parties and holidays. This recipe is a little bit different from the one my mom used to make, but the outcome is fairly similar: a tangy sweet lemon curd topped with a fluffy cloud-layer of lemon scented sponge cake.
Pudding cakes are the result of mysterious oven-magic, the cake is made by making a lemon mixture that is then folded into egg whites, but as it bakes in it's steamy water bath, the cake separates into a sauce with a fluffy cake topping. The result is delicious and moist and requires no garnish excet for some garden-fresh red currants and a dusting of powdered sugar. You can even make individual servings in ramekins but I opted to serve this dessert family style in a large casserole dish.
This two in one dessert is both pudding and cake, giving me ample opportunity to indulge my Anglophilia by calling it a "pud"and a generally using a parade of "British-isms" to assuage my longing to visit the land of tea and crumpets. Someday!

Lemon Pudding Cakes
makes 8 servings
dairy

• 1/2 cup all-purposeflour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 large eggs, separated
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest.
• 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice ( from about 2 lemons)
  
• 1-1/3 cups whole milk

1. Preheat the oven to 35 degrees F. Use either a large 2 quart soufle dish or 8 ramekins and place in a large baking dish. You do not need to grease the pans.
2. In a small bowl, stir together the flour and the salt. In a separate bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the egg yolks with 3/4 cups of the sugar until pale ad thick. they may be slightly grainy. Stir in the flour and beat until very thick, about 2 minutes more. Mine looked biscuit-like at this point. Stir in the lemon zest, juice and milk.
3. Using an electric mixer on high speed, whip the egg whites until foamy. Sprinkle in the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and whip until soft peaks form when the beaters are lifted. Using a spatula, stir one fourth of the egg whites into the lemon mixture. Gently fold in the rest just until no streaks of white are visible. Divide among the ramekins, or pour into large casserole dish.
4. Plae casserole or ramekins in a large pan and fill to one inch with boiling water. Bake until the centres are firm to the touch and the edges are slightly golden brown and pull away from the sides of the ramekins or casserole, about 40-50 minuteas. Remove from the oven but leave in the water bath for 15-20 minutes. Serve warm or at room tempertaure straight from ramekins or carefully cut into squares..

Adapted from: The Williams Sonoma Baking Book: The Essential Recipe Collection for Today's Home Baker

Brown Basmati Rice Pudding

This recipe makes a rich dairy free rice pudding. This version is quite spicy due to the amount of ginger that is infused during cooking. The ginger makes this pudding so much more exotic and alluring and it was a welcome change from my regular rice pudding recipe.
Brown basmati rice is notable for its toasty fragrance that combined with the aromatic scent of the cinnamon stick and fresh ginger made my kitchen smell deliciously comforting. The coconut milk makes this dish rich and coconutty in a subtle way and complements the nuttiness of the brown rice. This is quite the wholesome recipe considering it is made with whole grain rice and only 4 tablespoons of sugar. It is the perfect ending to an Indian style meal served with spicy chai tea.


Brown Basmati Rice Pudding
Serves 4
time: 1 hour and 15 minutes, mostly inactive
vegan

• 1 cup brown basmati rice
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup soy or rice milk
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1-inch piece ginger peeled and thinly sliced
• 6 cardamom pods crushed (optional)
• 3 -inch long cinnamon stick
• 4 tablespoons/ 2oz/ 60 grams brown sugar
• 1 can "lite" coconut milk, about 2 cups, (can replace 1/2 with soymilk, if low on coconut milk.)
• 1 cup golden or dark raisins (optional)
  

1. Rinse the basmati rice and place in a heavy bottomed pot. Add water, soy milk, salt, ginger, cardamom and cinnamon. Bring to boil, reduce heat to low and cover for 45 minutes.
2. Stir in the sugar and coconut milk and simmer the rice without a lid over low heat (there should be bubbles breaking the surface especially as the liquid begins to evaporate). Cook until the liquid evaporates and the pudding thickens, about 30-35 minutes. Remove the ginger slices, cardamom pods and cinnamon stick. Serve hot, warm or room temperature.

From: Rebar Modern Food Cookbook

Rice Pudding

Making rice pudding has been on my to-do list for a while. This recipe comes from the Gourmet Cookbook. This recipe utilizes a vanilla bean, one of my baking obsessions, but even if you substitute a tablespoon of vanilla extract, this is still a basic recipe made with simple ingredients.
Rice pudding has a long and complex history as rice pudding-type desserts show up in virtually every type of cuisine. In fact in every bowl of rice pudding there is a tale of conquest and globalization, made easier to swallow with some sweet starchy goodness. Indeed, I researched this. It seems rice pudding was brought to the British through colonialism, specifically from the British colonies in India.The rice pudding we know and love today was inspired by Indian Kheer.
This recipe is a simple vanilla version. Plain long grain white rice gets cooked with water, butter and a touch of lemon zest, as you would any rice dish. Once cooked, the milk gets simmered with a vanila bean to bring out its subtle sweet fragrance. The cooked rice then gets stirred into the milk and simmered for 15 minutes longer so that the startches thicken the milk into a creamy pudding, and the rice and raisins soften into a luscious toothsome dessert. The finished pudding gets dusted with cinnamon, and the heat of the rice wafts the scent of vanilla and cinnamon into the kitchen.


I ran out of milk and I used half milk and half water to no ill effect, so this recipe can be as sinful or as virtuous as you wish. I used a mix of golden and dark raisins, because I like the look of the two different colours interspersed with the pale vanilla flecked pudding. The flavours were subdued but the effect was pure comfort food. It is no wonder this is such a popular dish worldwide.

Rice Pudding

Combines the flavours of vanilla bean, lemon and cinnamon. Served warm or cold.

Serves 6-8 active time 40 min, about 1 hour start to finish

Dairy

• 2 cups water
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
• 1 cup long grain white rice
• 4 cups milk (I used 2 cups 1% milk and two cups water and the pudding worked fine)
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ vanilla bean, halved lengthwise
• 1 cup raisins, I used a mix of regular and golden raisins
• ground cinnamon for sprinkling

1. Combine water, butter, salt and lemon zest in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir in rice and return to a boil, then cover and simmer over very low heat until water is absorbed, about 15 minutes.
2. Combine milk, sugar and vanilla bean in a 3-quart saucepan and bring just to a simmer over low heat. Add rice mixture and raisins and simmer, uncovered stirring frequently, until most of milk is absorbed and rice is creamy, about 20 minutes.
3. Transfer pudding to a bowl: discard vanilla bean. Dust with cinnamon and cool until just warm before serving.

Adapted from: The Gourmet Cookbook ed. Ruth Reichl

Blueberry Pudding Cake with Cream Cheese Ice Cream

I came to study in the Maritimes about a year ago and one of the first things I learned was of the existence of the wild blueberry. I first tried them on a whim last year and have been waiting for them to come back into season ever since.

Despite being tiny, they have such an intense flavour compared to cultivated blueberries it is really amazing. My waiting was finally rewarded when I saw the first cartons of blueberries in the markets. I decided to splurge and bought myself a carton of the teeny fruits, with the intent of using them on a blueberry baking spree.

I was in an indulgent comfort food mood, since I just finished up some classes this summer, so I decided to make this blueberry pudding cake because I was intrigued by the concept and wanted a full on blueberry dessert. You could use cultivated blueberries for this recipe too but if you can get them wild blueberries are amazing in this recipe.

A blueberry pudding cake is similar to a lemon pudding cake in that there is a sauce layer on the bottom and a moist fluffy sponge cake layer on top. However Unlike its citrus (or chocolate!) compatriots, this cake does not owe it’s separation to the mixing method, rather you simply layer the ingredients in the pan so the sauce bubbles underneath while the cake bakes on top.

The first step to making this is to toss blueberries with sugar in a baking pan. This probably won’t be a problem with cultivated blueberries but if you use wilds you must take a bit of time to do some de-stemming. Picking the microscopic stems out of the tiny berries is a pain but so worth it in the end.

Next you make a lemon scented cake batter that is as smooth and satiny as a dog’s ear, and spread it over the berries in the pan, smoothing as you go. Then comes the strange part, boiling up a syrup of water sugar and lemon juice and then pouring it over the cake before baking. I was a bit trepidatious at this point but when the cake came out of the oven I breathed a sigh of relief. It came out perfectly.

Tender moist cake served warm with its own sauce, it’s easy and pure comfort food.

But I needed more!

I decided to make a cream cheese ice cream to go with my blueberry cake.

This cream cheese ice cream is so simple to make. It is whipped up in the blender and then churned in the ice cream machine. I think it is one of the better ice creams I have made lately. This ice cream tastes exactly like cheesecake, the texture is smooth, creamy and thick and it tastes slightly tangy because of the cream cheese. This ice cream complemented my pudding cake very well, when the tangy ice cream melts into the warm blueberry sauce, it tastes like a blueberry cheesecake.

I would definitely make both of these recipes over and over again.

This cake can be made ahead of time but it doesn’t keep too well, after more than a day, because the blueberries begin to get absorbed by the sponge cake. It is good either warm or cold but I prefer this cake warm.

The wild blueberries were tamed and they tasted good!

Blueberry Pudding Cake

Makes 8 servings

Time: 1-1/2 hours, including 50 minutes baking time

• 3 cups wild or cultivated blueberries
  
• 2/3 cup sugar, divided
• ¾ cup water
• ¼ cup lemon juice

Cake topping

• ½ cup butter
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• pinch salt
• ½ cup milk

1. In a greased 8-inch glass baking dish, toss blueberries with 1/3 cup of the sugar; set aside .(can be done ahead of time)
2. Make cake topping: In a large bowl, beat butter with sugar until light. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat in lemon zest and vanilla.
3. Ina separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to butter mixture alternately with milk, making 3 additions of flour mixture and 2 of milk. Scrape over blueberries, smoothing top. Set aside.
4. In a small saucepan, bring water, lemon juice and remaining sugar to boil; pour over batter. Bake in centre of 350 degree F oven until bubbly around edges and cake is firm to touch, 50-55 minutes. Let cool slightly before serving. (Make ahead: Set aside for up to 8 hours; reheat if desired)

Adapted from: Canadian Living Magazine August 2008

Cream Cheese Ice Cream

• 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• ½ cup heavy cream
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Combine cream cheese, milk, lemon juice, sugar and salt in a blender and blend until smooth. Transfer to a bowl and stir in cream and vanilla. Chill completely.
2. Freeze mixture inn ice cream maker. Transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden.
3. Let ice cream soften for 5 minutes before serving.

This ice cream can be made up to 1 week ahead.

From: The Gourmet Cookbook ed. Ruth Reichel