Easy Lemon Lava Cake
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Lemon Lava Cake is silky and luscious. This boxed cake mix recipe is simple and easy to make!
Made with cake mix and lemon pudding, it comes out of the oven with a self-made lemon sauce. It’s best served warm with vanilla ice cream.
When hot, the lemon sauce flows like lava out of this Easy Lemon Lava Cake, thus its’ name. You may have seen chocolate lava or red velvet lava cakes before. I didn’t want to discriminate, so tried the same cooking method using lemon. It worked like a charm.
Lemon Lava Cake
This pudding cake is luscious, with a velvety mouthfeel. There’s no tartness usually associated with lemon desserts. It’s sweet and sensational. It’s sure to satisfy the taste buds of the lemon lover in your life!
Recipe Tips
- First, this cake starts with a cake mix. If you have a basic lemon cake recipe, you can use that if you’re opposed to using a box mix. At times, I like a semi-homemade, time-saving cake and I start it with a cake mix.
- Next, I use the 15.25-ounce yellow or white cake mix.
- This cake uses instant pudding. If you are opposed to using instant pudding mix, I don’t know a substitution for that. If you are unable to find instant pudding in your area, try Amazon. This is the instant pudding I use in lemon flavor.
- Serve this cake warm, with homemade whipped cream or a good quality vanilla ice cream.
To make whipped cream, place a metal mixing bowl and metal whisk in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons sugar and 1 cup heavy whipping cream in a large bowl. Whisk just until the cream reaches stiff peaks. Store any unused portion in an airtight container for up to 10 hours.
Easy Lemon Lava Cake
Ingredients
- 15.25 ounce package yellow cake mix or white cake mix + eggs, oil, & water called for on back of cake mix
- (2) -3.4 ounce packages lemon instant pudding mix
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- 2 cups whole milk cold
- 1 and ¼ cup water
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Spray a 9×13 inch cake pan with non-stick spray.
- Prepare cake as directed on back of package.
- Pour cake batter into prepared pan.
- Add dry pudding mix, granulated sugar, milk and water in a bowl.
- Whisk by hand 2 minutes.
- Evenly pour lemon pudding mix over cake batter. Do not stir.
- Place cake pan on a larger baking pan with at least a 1-inch edge in case the cake bubbles over.
- Bake 55 minutes to 1 hour or until cake is brown on top and wooden pick inserted in center of the cake comes out clean.
- Cool 20 minutes before serving.
- Dust with confectioners sugar.
- Serve warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream and/or fresh raspberries, strawberries, or blueberries.
- Refrigerate leftovers.
Notes
- optional – confectioners sugar for dusting.
- Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, fresh raspberries, strawberries, or blueberries
Nutrition
Nutritional information given is an automatic calculation and can vary based on the exact products you use and changes you make to the recipe. If these numbers are important to you, I recommend calculating them yourself.
Finally, if you like Easy Lemon Lava Cake, you may also like these recipes
How to make Lemon MIni Cupcakes
This was big in the 50s, seems like everybody’s mom made it .. it was called lemon sponge pudding, and everything was made from scratch … no cake mixed or pudding involved, yet somehow the batter separates into cake and custard emerged from the oven …
I think if you take a little extra time and make it from scratch (lots of recipes online), you’ll end up with a tremendously superior dessert.
Thank you for posting this. It brings back a lot of memories.
Oh my goodness does this sound delicious! I haven’t ever heard of a lemon lava cake before, totally trying it out!!!!
Can’t we ever have a recipe that does not have prepared and packaged foods as prime ingredients?? I simply toss these…
https://www.callmepmc.com/cold-oven-brown-sugar-whipping-cream-pound-cake/
https://www.callmepmc.com/million-dollar-pound-cake/
https://www.callmepmc.com/pmcs-caramel-cobbler-call-me-pmc/
https://www.callmepmc.com/sour-cream-pound-cake-recipe/
where is the RECIPE FOR THE FROSTING SHOWN ON THE LEMON CAKE??????
There is not frosting on the cake
This was delicious! Everyone loved it. Thanks for the recipe.
Instead of pudding could I use the lemon pie filling. It’s what I have now and been looking for a excuse to use it 🙂
Erica, I think it will work. I’ve never made it like that though.
Erica, did it work with lemon pie filling as we don’t have lemon pudding mix in the uk?
Years ago there was a delicious boxed mix for a lemon pudding cake that my mom especially loved, your recipe brought back fond memories. Thanks, I’ll have to try this on for sure.
Yup, duncan hines made a lemon pudding cake. Over the years I’ve tried many recipes for it without succeeding. A few years ago I found a recipe very much like this (if not exact, not looking at it right now) on another website and it nailed it!
I made this but I used yellow cake mix and chocolate it was good . I also had try some of your other recipes I like every I have made . THANK YOU
Thanks for sharing at Weekend Potluck! If you could be so kind to add a link back.
Looks like I have new dessert for Superb Bowl Sunday!