I wasn’t a fan of sweets when I was growing up. However, as I’ve grown older, I’ve developed a sweet tooth. It’s mainly stems from my love of baking. Although baking is a lot of fun, it can be tedious so I’m always on the lookout for easy desserts. This lemon caramel pudding is definitely fits in with easy dessert. Plus I love sharing desserts with people so these lemon pudding are served in lemon halves are perfect for entertaining!

If you grew up in Asian households, our definition of dessert definitely falls towards only slightly sweet. Sometimes the best complement you can get is “It’s not too sweet!” While I can appreciate really sweet desserts, it can get pretty rich and filling very quickly. My favourite type of desserts are the ones that have a slight sweetness with a play on texture or flavour. My husband is the same. I think this caramel lemon pudding fits. The pudding is creamy with a nice lemon flavour and just enough sweetness.

Ingredients

There are only 4 ingredients for this lemon caramel pudding: sugar, heavy/whipping cream, lemon juice and gelatin sheet.

The gelatin sheet helps to solidify the pudding as there are no eggs in this recipe. The gelatin sheet I’m using is bovine which comes from cows. This is a good alternative for anyone who cannot eat pork as some gelatin are made with pigs. If you cannot eat any type of meat, then another alternative is agar agar powder which is made from seaweed. That is completely vegan. You can also cut these sheets into smaller pieces if you don’t need to use one whole sheet.

The heavy/whipping cream is used to give the pudding a creamy texture and lemon juice is the star of the show. Sugar helps to taper down the sourness of the lemons and the caramel sugar crust adds a contrast to the texture.

How to make lemon caramel pudding

The hardest part for me was actually removing the pulp from the peel of the lemons. For every lemon it took me about 2-3 minutes to move the pulp, UNTIL I found a way to remove the pulp effectively. In addition, make sure to also remove any seeds before removing the pulp.

The lemon pulp is held in the peel by fibres at the head and the tail of the lemons. If I cut the fibres, it becomes easier for me to detach the rest of the pulp. Once the fibres are cut, a spoon is used to lift the pulp out of the lemons. The pulp is then squeezed to get the juice and strained to prevent any impurities in the juice.

To make the actual lemon pudding, it’s quite easy. Soak one sheet of gelatin sheet in cold water. You mix the whipping/heavy cream with sugar, let the sugar melt. Then the lemon juice is added. Once the cream mixture starts to bubble, add in the soaked gelatin sheet. Once the gelatin sheet melts, take it off the heat and pour into the lemon peels. Put the pudding into the fridge and let it set for at least 2 hours but overnight preferred.

Before serving, sprinkle a thick layer of sugar, use a blow torch to melt the sugar into a caramel layer!

Pro tip

• Make a slit at the end of the lemons. This will separate some of fibres holding the pulp inside the peel
• If the lemon doesn’t sit completely flat in the tray, take a small paring knife and slice a bit of the peel at the bottom so it has a flat base.
• I recommend gelatin sheets made with bovine instead of porcine (pigs) so if you have dietary restriction. If you are vegetarian, use agar agar is also a good alternative. Agar agar comes from seaweed.
• Put a thick layer of sugar on top of the pudding and use a powerful blow torch to melt the sugar.
• Once you melt the sugar on top, I would pop the lemon pudding into fridge to firm up slightly as the melting the sugar would have melted the pudding slightly as well.