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Today's Cases:

Particular Lemon Pudding Cake

Subject: Lemon pudding cake with frozen lemonade concentrate?
From: Suzanne
Date: 2/4/2021, 3:15 PM
To: phaedrus@hungrybrowser.com

On 2/4/2021 11:54 AM, Suzanne wrote:

Many years ago (60+ ?), my mother made a lemon pudding cake that called 
for frozen lemonade concentrate. This was not the cake mix–and–instant 
lemon pudding version that you have already identified. If you could 
find the lemonade concentrate version, I would be so grateful. Thanks!
   
Suzanne 
---------------------------------
On 2/4/2021 1:41 PM, Suzanne wrote:

Thanks so much for the quick response! Answers below in your message.

All the best,

SZ

Hi Suzanne,

I understand that the recipe you are looking for calls for frozen lemonade concentrate, but please clarify a few of the other things for me:

1) 60+ years ago is a long time. There are a lot of recipes that call for cake mix + pudding mix + frozen lemonade. Are you positive that her cake wasn't one of those?
Yes; she never would have used a cake mix that I can remember, and the only pudding mix in the house was chocolate that needed to be cooked.
2) The name of the cake recipe was "lemon pudding cake"? Not "lemonade cake" or just "lemon cake"?
I remember it as “lemon pudding cake,” although it could have been “lemonade pudding cake.” Definitely not “lemon cake,” since that implies only solid cake layers, without a layer of wet pudding/sauce underneath.
3) Did the recipe call for a box of lemon pudding mix or not? If not, where does the "pudding" come in?
No pudding mix. Pudding cakes start out as one very wet batter layer and as they bake, the separate into two layers, with wet, sauce-like pudding on the bottom and baked cake on top. When you served it out, you broke through the cake and spooned the pudding/sauce on top. (Kind of like the more recent Bisquick “Impossible” things that go into the pan as one batter but separate into crust and topping. The main difference is that the end layers are reversed in a pudding cake: dry on top, wet on the bottom.)
4) The recipe did not call for a box of cake mix? It was made from scratch except for the frozen lemonade?
No cake mix; from scratch, as far as I can remember.
5) What kind of frosting did the cake have?
No frosting. Pudding cakes don’t take frosting. See #3 above.

Please answer as many of these as you can, and I'll see what I can find.
The recipe might have come from Minute Maid; this was long before Coca Cola bought them.

Phaed

---------------------------------------------------------

Hello Suzanne,

Sorry, I cannot find a lemon pudding cake that fits your description. All of the recipes that I can find call for boxed cake mix and/or pudding mix along with the frozen lemonade concentrate.

I did find a few old lemon pudding cake recipes that described the batter as separating into a cake texture on top with a pudding texture on the bottom. However, they all called for fresh lemons & lemon juice, not frozen lemonade concentrate.

I'll post this for reader input later in the month.

Phaed