Lemon curdy pudding (and how to make it better next time hopefully).

I was making this pudding to follow the steak dinner last night. I say pudding, I mean dessert in Canadian language, as pudding is a kind of dessert here, so confusing!

Anyway, it is my Mum's recipe and I loved it growing up and this was my first attempt at making it on my own. I had such high hopes (as usual) and lots of expectation (as usual) and really wanted it to be just how I remembered. Luckily, the dinner guests are very forgiving and understanding so I didn't feel any pressure to provide perfection for them. Also, I had some left over chocolate quinoa cake in the fridge which would have to do as an alternative! 

The recipe uses stiffly beaten egg whites and a water bath cooking method. So having creamed the sugar and butter and lemon zest, and added the flour and baking powder, and then the milk and lemon juice, I was meant to fold in the egg whites but not too much. I think the first problem lies here. I didn't fold it in enough. There were small pockets of egg white on the surface of the batter which later on burned in the oven. Which I think is connected to the second problem, that I had the dish too high up in the oven. As Megan pointed out, cooking in a water bath (sitting your dish with mix inside a larger dish 1/3 filled with water so it partly steams/boils as it is baking) is a very gentle cooking method, so me putting the dish higher up in the oven put it into the hottest part of the oven and this didn't coincide with gentle cooking. I think in the future I will put the oven rack lower down and have the dessert cooking right around the middle of the oven. Needless to say, there needs to be a repeat attempt at this to get it right. 

The outcome wasn't terrible. I could actually peel away the burnt bits and the rest wasn't too badly affected. The aim is to get a light, fluffy cake part at the top with a creamy, saucy, lemon curd type part at the bottom. Very subtle flavours, very delicate dish. Ideally. It tasted great, I loved it. I love lemon! (I used to eat them whole, skin and all, with rock salt, as a child, it was one of my favourites! Also green mangoes with salt. I hope someone from Zambia reads this and understands as I know everyone else will be disgusted no doubt!) My husband is not a fan of lemon desserts so he had chocolate quinoa cake, and I got to have the rest of the lemon pudding today for brunch! Yay me!