My newfound friend is selling her house and moving away. I’m thrilled for her because she’s pressing the restart button on her life, embracing the great unknown and embarking on new adventures on the other side of the country. I’m also saddened by her imminent departure. Though technically Krislyn and I have been neighbors for years, we’ve only just recently struck up a friendship through our mutual love of food (particularly desserts) and dogs. My little chug Violet does not “play well” with bigger dogs, but even she’s warmed up to Krislyn’s sweet lovable German shepherd Chips.

Over the last four months, Krislyn’s plied me plums and Meyer lemons from her backyard trees and I’ve returned the favor with plum jam, bbq sauce, and lemon bread. She’s been an avid and vocal supporter of my baking experiments, “preaching the gospel” of Mimi’s kitchen to other neighbors. I’ve sort of gotten used to random masked people coming up to me and Violet at the neighborhood park asking me if I’m ‘the lady who bakes?”

Krislyn’s huge lemon tree is still bursting with fruit, its branches heavy with vibrant, fragrant lemons begging to be picked–so a couple of weeks ago I decided to go over and relieve some of those branches of their load. Krislyn has had no time for gardening, much less pick lemons. She’s been working at break neck speed to get her house ready to go on the market, moving all her possessions into storage, emptying out her overstuffed garage, and making cosmetic improvements in under a month. I came home with two grocery bags full. Now what?

I did not want a repeat of what happened to the bag of plums she gave me back in June–one minute they were green, the next completely red. Some of the lemons were still firm with a hint of green so I set those out in a bowl to ripen by the kitchen window. The rest were rinsed, stripped of zest and juiced, then frozen for later use.

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Ice cube trays are great for portioning out small quantities to be frozen but I didn’t want to stain the plastic yellow with lemon oil from the zest. I discovered a solution to this problem by using a small tray of silicon molds from IKEA instead.

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Who knows why I bought this in the first place…but nice to know it wasn’t a complete waste of money!

All this pre-portioning or mis en place brought me back to my working pastry chef days when my pastry crew and I would zest and juice Meyer lemons by the case, labeling and stashing plastic quart and pint size containers in the freezer, ready to be pulled whenever we had to whip up large batches of Meyer Lemon Pudding Cakes, a seasonal favorite on my dessert menu at Scala’s Bistro. It was so popular it could’ve easily stayed on the menu indefinitely were it not for our stringent rules about seasonality. We only featured it in the winter, at the height of Meyer lemon season–which is why the prolific nature of Krislyn’s tree in mid summer is so extraordinary. Not one to look a gift horse (or tree) in the mouth, I happily eschewed the rules and baked up a small batch of pudding cakes with some leftover juice and zest.

I think what makes this dessert so damn delicious is that it’s essentially two desserts in one–a featherlight soufflé cake on top with a layer of lusciously tangy lemon curd on the bottom. As the pudding cake bakes, the batter splits into two distinct textures. At Scala’s, we served it in generously-sized individual ramekins, warmed (in the pizza oven no less), topped with huckleberry compote, soft whipped cream (sometimes creme fraiche) and a liberal dusting of powdered sugar. While you can certainly bake the pudding cake in one large dish, nothing beats the dramatic effect of digging a spoon into one’s very own soufflé cake and pulling up a hidden “sauce” from the bottom.

For my little pudding cakes I discovered the ideal vessels to be squat 8 oz. glass jars I’d purchased for making preserves.

To make the batter, I simply sifted all-purpose flour, baking powder, sugar, and sea salt into a medium bowl, and in a large measuring cup, whisked together melted butter, lemon juice, zest, yolks and milk, then whisked the wet ingredients into the dry. To create the split layer effect, I whipped the whites to stiff peaks then folded them into the batter.

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Because the mouth of the jar was narrower than its base, I used a canning funnel to cut down on the mess as I ladled in the batter.

The pudding cakes baked in a water bath at 325F degrees (convection) for about 25 mins, just until the sponge was set and the tops golden.

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The enticing scent of Meyer lemon perfumed the entire kitchen as the jars cooled by the window, just as it did all those years ago in my pastry kitchen at Scala’s. I can still recall our servers and front of the house managers each casually strolling by, eyes fixed on the rack of cooling pudding cakes, breathing in the intoxicating aroma with an expression of longing on their faces. Some would ask if I was going to sample one at line-up, even though the pudding cake had been on the menu for weeks and hardly considered a new item in need of explaining. Digging into the warm yielding soufflé cake and tasting the bright, puckery soft lemon curd melting on my tongue, I’m once again reminded of why this dessert was and still is so loved.

Krislyn claims I’m a magician when it comes to desserts. I humbly accept the praise but I don’t think there’s any wizardry involved. When I create a dessert it’s with the intention of producing happiness. Happiness is the magic. The pure joy others experience when eating my desserts (or pretty much anything I’ve produced) is reciprocated in the joy I feel having made them happy…which makes me want to create more. That’s the most gratifying aspect of my profession–riding the happiness loop. It’s definitely why I loved my time at Scala’s…and why dipping back into the Scala archives is great motivation for me to keep pushing forward during these challenging, confusing times.

More Scala tales to come…

The recipe I used for my six pudding cakes is not the one we used at Scala’s. That one would have been a pain in the butt to scale down. Instead I adapted a recipe from a New Zealand publication called Dish, which was fairly close in terms of ingredients to the restaurant batch size recipe we used at Scala’s.

Individual Meyer Lemon Pudding Cakes (adapted from Dish)

Yield: 6 cakes

• 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
• 1/2 t. baking powder
• 1 c. sugar
• 1/4 t. sea salt
• 3 1/2 T. unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 c. Meyer lemon juice
• zest of 2 Meyer lemons
• 1 1/2 c. whole milk
• 4 large eggs, separated

1. Sift together dry ingredients into a medium bowl. Create a well in the center.
2. Reserve the whites and whisk together remaining wet ingredients.
3. Gradually pour and whisk the wet ingredients into the dry until smooth.
4. Whip the whites to stiff peaks, then fold into the batter in thirds.
5. Ladle the batter into six 8oz. mason jars or ramekins, then set them inside a roasting pan. Fill pan with enough hot water to go halfway up the jars or ramekins.
6. Bake in a preheated 325F degree convection oven (or 350F degree no fan) for about 25 mins. or until the sponge is set and golden.
7. Serve pudding cakes warm.