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These Lemon Soufflé Magic Cakes are light and airy sponge cakes topped with a lemon curd pudding. And, all you had to do was make one batter that magically separates while it bakes!
This was my magical birthday dessert this year!
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Birthday Dessert 2018
See, every year my wonderful husband makes me a super impressive dessert. He does all the work on the dessert. Now he even chooses which recipe he will make for me! That way I don’t have to do any work for it! How awesome is that!
He says that I cook for him all the other days, so he likes to do something special for me, and make a special dessert for my birthday.
These are very impressive and super delicious little lemon desserts. Top them with fresh berries, a sprinkling of powdered sugar, whipped cream, or a little vanilla ice cream, as desired. Or, don’t top them at all – they are that delicious!
Lemon Soufflé Magic Cakes Recipe Notes:
Superfine Sugar
Superfine sugar, also known as caster sugar, is white sugar that is more finely ground than granulated sugar, but not as fine as powdered sugar (also known as confectioners’ sugar or 10x sugar).
It may be purchased or made. If you can’t find it at the store, or simply don’t want to buy an additional ingredient, use your food processor to make it.
Add a couple of tablespoons more than the desired amount of sugar to a food processor, and process until it feels like fine sand. The extra amount of sugar allows for the reduction in volume from grinding it.
If you have additional superfine sugar when you’re done using it, simply add the extra to back to your bag of sugar and use it in another recipe.
Superfine sugar and granulated sugar can be substituted as one for one by weight.
Water bath
These little cakes are baked in a water bath, or bain-marie. The cakes are delicate, and need the water to protect them from the high heat of the oven.
As the cakes bake, the water evaporates, and it creates a little steam in the oven, this helps them bake evenly.
How to serve them
After the cakes are removed from the oven they do deflate a little. That’s normal. We had a couple that we stored in the fridge overnight, and they lost a little more of their puffiness, but were still delicious.
And, we had a hard time deciding which we liked more, the cold from the fridge cakes, or the warm from the oven cakes.
Ramekins
For the ramekins, you can use larger or smaller ones than the 1-cup size called for in the recipe. Don’t worry if your ramekins are a little smaller or larger than the size called for. Your cakes may be a little taller if your ramekins are deeper, and the cakes may be a little flatter if you use a bigger ramekin. We made both sizes, and each worked out really well.
I could see making these little cakes for mother’s day or Easter as special individual desserts. You could also serve them in the ramekins, no you wouldn’t be able to see the pretty layers, but you would be able to taste them, and there’s something fun about getting dessert in your own ramekin!
Other great Lemon Desserts!
I’m a big fan of lemon desserts; I’d actually say that they are my favorite. So, I have lots of them to choose from!
If you’re a fan too, you’ll definitely want to try my Grandma’s Lemon Custard Pie, Lemon Impossible Pie from Lovefoodies, and Lemon Soufflé Cheesecake.
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Lemon Soufflé Magic Cakes Recipe
Lemon Soufflé Magic Cakes
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 2/3 cup superfine sugar plus more for dusting
- 2 eggs separated
- 2/3 cup reduced-fat buttermilk
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon fine grain salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325° F. Butter and lightly sugar 4 ramekins (about 1-cup size).
- In a medium bowl, using a whisk, mix together egg yolks, buttermilk, lemon juice, and lemon zest until well combined. Sift in flour, sugar, and salt, and continue to mix until just combined.
- In a separate squeaky-clean bowl, using a hand-mixer with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Make sure not to over beat the eggs, just until stiff peaks, make sure they aren’t dry.
- Gently fold the whipped egg whites into the flour mixture, a little at a time, making sure not to deflate the beaten eggs.
- Divide the batter evenly among the prepared ramekins. Set the filled ramekins in a 13×9 baking pan, or in a large roasting tray. Fill the baking pan with hot water so it goes halfway up the sides of the ramekins, being careful not to get water into the inside of the ramekins.
- Carefully place the water bath with filled ramekins in the oven, and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until the top springs back when gently pressed, and the cakes have a nice golden brown color. Remove the baking pan from the oven, allow the cakes to cool slightly, and remove the ramekins from the water bath. Wipe the outside of the ramekins dry with a towel.
- To serve, run a paring knife or offset spatula around the outside of the cake. Place a plate on top of a ramekin, and carefully turn over the plate and the ramekin, holding them together. Remove the ramekin off the top to reveal the layer of cake and pudding. Garnish with berries and a sprinkling of powdered sugar.
- Store cooled cakes in the refrigerator.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations, and should be considered estimates. Actual nutritional content will vary based on brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes, and more.
mary dettrich
These look wonderful. Can’t wait to make them!
Carolyn
This looks amazing!
Angela
Just printed this out!! It sounds amazing!!! I love lemon in desserts and I’ve never made a soufflé so looking forward very much to this one!
Sandra Shaffer
What beautiful souffle magic cakes! I love everything with lemon and this looks super easy to make. Perfect spring-time dessert for Easter or Mother’s Day.
michele
What a great tip about making super fine sugar without having to go buy more! It worked like a charm! These were so easy to make and everyone just raved about them for the coffee Club I took them too! I’ll definitely be making them again!
Ashlyn
Such a beautiful dessert and a very special tradition that your husband does for you! Happy belated birthday!
Michaela Kenkel
He always makes you the best desserts!! This one is top notch!! I LOVE lemon ANYTHING!!
Michele Phillips
The only thing better than lemon cake is *individual* lemon cakes! These cakes are just gorgeous… So delicate and delicious! I look forward to making my own birthday cakes every year, but I love the fact that your thoughtful husband makes yours! (I’ll be sharing this idea… er, recipe with my hubby!) 😉
Jennifer A Stewart
Chemistry never ceases to amaze me! I love that you use one batter and get all these magical layers and textures! I can’t wait to try this but with lime!!
Madi
What a gorgeous little cake! I have to make this, lemon is my favorite!
Julie
I am a lemon fanatic. These little cakes are so pretty and remind me of spring. I also love that the ramekins allowme to have one all to myself!
Jo
Wish I could make your recipe… unfortunately no metric weights.. very disappointed cos it looks amazing! 🙁
Debi
Jo, It’s pretty easy to use a conversion calculator on recipes. Try one like this: https://www.metric-conversions.org/ I’ve done it many times.
Tressa
I’m planning to double this recipe. Can I bake on 2 racks at the same time, or will that affect how they bake?
Also – any reason I shouldn’t use powdered buttermilk in these?
Debi
Tressa, they should be just fine on 2 racks at the same time, especially if you have a convection oven. I haven’t tried powdered buttermilk in these. I’ve had very good luck using powdered buttermilk in baking recipes, so it seems to me that it should work just fine. Let me know if you do the swap; I’d love to hear!
Charles Sharp
I used to buy a big cake in the Early 70’s it was named a ‘Souflette Supreme’. Can’t find it in stores these days, does anyone have any info on this please?
It had two sponge layers with rich cream in between. The cake itself had a lemon maybe even pineapple taste about it.
Debi
Charles, I have never heard of it. but it sounds tasty. I looked on Google for it, but found nothing there. I’ve asked my friends on Facebook to see if they have heard of anything. I’ll let you know if I find it.
Debi
Charles, no one has been able to find anything about that exact cake, but the google rabbit hole led my friend down to a company called Lyons (in the UK) that makes various types of cakes and tarts. here’s the google link for them: https://www.google.com/search?q=lyons+cakes&client=firefox-b-1-d&sxsrf=ACYBGNQOpfPbZor0Lfh8zEX9pXmVOs0mBg:1571355213935&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi6rd6quqTlAhVaFTQIHdvqDMMQ_AUIESgB&biw=1738&bih=896
Debi
Charles, one more. Here’s a cake recipe that may be like what you are looking for: https://lovefoodies.com/mandarin-or-pineapple-cream-cake/
Charles
I made this recipe for my mom. It was easy to follow and the cakes were delicious. I’ll make this again!