This is the pudding that makes its own sauce, and it does the whole thing in the slow cooker. You mix a simple lemon batter, pour a lemony liquid over the top of it, and while it cooks the batter rises into a soft sponge and the liquid sinks to the bottom and turns into sauce. You don’t do anything clever to make that happen. It just does it.
It’s a good one for a cold night when you want something warm and a bit tangy without turning the oven on. Prep is 20 minutes and it cooks on high for 2 hours, so you can get it going after dinner and have pudding ready by the time everyone’s finished the dishes.
There’s a no-churn lemon ice cream in the recipe card too, made with cream, condensed milk and a bit more lemon zest. You don’t have to make it, but warm lemon sauce with cold lemon ice cream is a very good combination.
Why You’ll Love It
It’s cheap, it’s easy, and it uses things you probably already have. The batter is flour, sugar, milk, butter, an egg and lemons, and the sauce is sugar, lemon juice, cornflour and boiling water, so there’s nothing you need to go hunting for. There’s no oven, which matters on a hot day and matters again if your oven is already full. It feeds six from one slow cooker, and because it’s a slow cooker job you’re not standing over it. You mix, you pour, you put the lid on and you walk away.
Handy Tips
The one step worth slowing down for is pouring the sauce liquid on. Pour it over the back of a soup spoon or a spatula so it spreads out gently instead of punching a hole through the batter, because that’s what lets it sink underneath and stay as sauce. Give the batter a good mix until it’s smooth, but stop once it’s smooth, since working it too hard makes the sponge dense. Spray the slow cooker before the batter goes in and serving is much easier later. And put a tea towel over the top before the lid goes on, which catches the condensation that would otherwise drip back down and leave the top wet.
Make It Your Way
The lemon ice cream in the card is the easiest thing to add if you want to make it feel like a proper dessert. You whip the thickened cream with vanilla and lemon zest, add the condensed milk, and whiz it together again, and that’s it, no churning and no ice cream machine. If you’d rather not, plain cream or custard does the job just as well. You can also lean the lemon harder by adding the zest of another lemon to the batter, since the sauce is where most of the tang sits and the sponge can take a bit more.
How to Store It
Leftovers keep in the fridge for up to three days, covered. It’s best warm, so reheat it gently until it’s heated through, and be aware the sauce soaks into the sponge a bit while it sits, so the second serve is more of a soft pudding and less of a sauce situation. That’s normal and it still tastes good.
Other Recipes You’ll Love
Lemon Self Saucing Pudding
Prep Time 20 minutes 
Cook Time
2 hours 
Total Time 2 hours 20 minutes 
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Let’s start by whipping up the cake batter! in a bowl, add the Lemon juice, Lemon zest, Caster Sugar, melted Butter, Egg, and Milk. Whisk it all together until it’s smooth and looking like a lemony dream.
- Now, add your Self-Raising Flour to the mix and stir until everything is well combined and you’ve got a lovely, thick batter.
- Spray your slow cooker with a bit of Olive Oil to stop the cake from sticking—it’ll make serving so much easier later
- Pour your cake batter into the slow cooker and spread it out evenly over the bottom – this is where the magic begins!
- Next, mix the Lemon juice, Sugar, boiling water, and Corn Flour – here comes the fun part—gently pour this lemony liquid over the back of a soup spoon or your spatula onto the cake batter, it’ll sink down and create a delicious sauce as it cooks.
- Place a tea towel over the top of your slow cooker (this helps catch condensation and keeps the cake fluffy), then pop on the lid. Cook on high for 2 hours or until the cake is set and the top is golden.
- To make the Ice-cream, put the thickened Cream into the mix master, whip the cream with the Vanilla and zest of the Lemons, after that has come together, add in the Condensed Milk, and whiz together again.
- Once the pudding is ready, serve it up warm, making sure to scoop up some of that amazing Lemon sauce from the bottom. Enjoy the perfect balance of sweet and tart in every bite with a side of the 3 ingredient no-churn Lemon Ice-cream.
Nutrition
Video
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FAQs
Why didn’t my pudding form a sauce?
Usually one of three things. The batter was mixed too hard and went dense, so the liquid couldn’t get through it. The liquid was poured on too quickly instead of over the back of a spoon, which breaks up the batter and mixes the two layers together. Or it cooked too long and the sponge drank the sauce. Pour gently and check it at 2 hours.
Can I make this in the oven instead of the slow cooker?
Stick with the slow cooker. The dish, the temperature and the timing all go together, so an oven version would be a different recipe rather than a different setting.
Can I use bottled lemon juice?
Not really, because the recipe needs the zest of six lemons across the batter and the sauce, and you can’t get that out of a bottle. If you’ve already got the lemons for the zest, you may as well use their juice too.
Can I make it gluten-free?
Yes. Swap the self-raising flour for a gluten-free self-raising blend and add 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum, which gives the sponge the structure the wheat flour was providing. One thing to watch that’s easy to miss: check your cornflour is maize cornflour, because plenty of what’s sold as cornflour in Australia is wheaten and it goes in the sauce.
Do I have to make the ice cream?
No. The pudding stands on its own and cream or custard is completely fine. The ice cream is there because it’s only three ingredients and it uses the same lemons you’ve already zested.
