You know the saying? No, it's misquoted. When life gives you lemons, make lemon delight! So, living in Miami, there is a glut of citrus as various times of the year. What can one do with all those lemons and limes? Make the best dessert in the world with them. Lemon delight is also called "lemon pudding" and "lemon pudding cake" and it is, I think, a quintessentially British dish (although I may be wrong about that). My recipe comes from my mother and it took me years of internet searches to convert the measures (such obscure volumes as a "breakfast cup", I mean, wtf?) into usable units.
Step 1: Cream 1 tablespoon of butter with a SCANT 1/2 (american) cup of sugar in a stand mixer. Don't have the stand mixer? Soften the butter in the microwave and cream in a bowl with a hand mixer.
Step 2: Separate 2 eggs. Keep the whites in a separate bowl. Add the yolks to the sugar/butter mixture to emulsify.
Step 3: Add 2 tablespoons of all purpose flour to the mixture and mix in.
Step 4: Add juice and zest of 1 lemon (I think a large lime, or two small limes would work just as well) and 180 ml of milk to the mixture. (180 ml is exactly 3/4 of an american cup.) Note: Zest lemon first with a micro-grater, then juice it. Mix the whole mixture well. Add a very small pinch of salt. There is a tricky interaction here. Too much salt and the dessert will taste nasty, but no salt at all and it tastes just a little one-dimensional. So you have to experiment with this. For some reason, salt and sour can conflict in taste, but you do need a touch of salt in this recipe.
Step 5: Whip the egg whites, and fold them into the mixture.
Step 6: Here's the tricky part. You need to make a water bath for the container in which you are going to bake the dessert. I use a smaller and larger square corningware dish, but whatever. Improvise. Bake in the oven at around 400F (200C) and turn down to 350F (180C) after about 1/2 an hour. Full baking time should be a little under 1 hour.
Step 7: Eat. For some reason the Poms think that you should only eat very small helpings of lemon delight. My mother's recipe says "serves 4." Are you kidding me? The proportions I just gave you serves 2 at most. And most of the time Yuhfen is vociferously complaining that she didn't get enough. (Trust me, this dessert is that good.)
