Creamy and tart, lemon cake filling takes minutes to make. Brighten cakes and desserts with sunny homemade lemon custard.
Recipe Overview
Why you’ll love it: Making your own lemon cake filling is easy and it tastes so much better than canned lemon filling. The lemon custard makes a great dessert on its own, too.
How long it takes: 20 minutes to make, 1 hour to chill
Equipment you’ll need: saucepan, bowl, lemon zester and juicer
Servings: makes 1 ¼ cups
Do you love the tartness of lemon and the creaminess of pudding? Do you enjoy bright and light desserts? Well, who doesn’t, right? Lemon cake filling, made from scratch in your own kitchen, will be appreciated by everyone. It’s versatile enough to use in a lot of different desserts or to serve in a dessert bowl, without any embellishment.
Why You’ll Love this lemon cake filling
- It’s easy to make. While making lemon cake filling yourself may seem daunting, it’s really not difficult at all. You’ll be able to make this custard-like filling in 15 minutes. You won’t need any special equipment and you won’t need to learn any fancy cooking techniques.
- It’s yummy! Lemon filling is so good, you’ll want to leave a fair amount of it in the pan for the cook’s enjoyment. Hey, I’m talking about you! Don’t deny the urge to sample what the pan has to offer. That’s your bonus.
How do you make lemon filling from scratch?
Lemon cake filling is a one-pan recipe. You’ll need a small saucepan and a whisk. Choose a silicone whisk if you’re using a nonstick saucepan.
The ingredients are basic:
- lemon juice
- butter
- egg yolk
- sugar
- cornstarch
- salt
- water
Mix the dry ingredients in the pan and blend in the egg yolks. The mixture will be thick and kind of lumpy. Whisk in the water. This should smooth out the egg mixture.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture comes to a boil and thickens. It’s important to stir the whole time!
Stir in the butter and lemon juice, adding a bit of lemon zest, too, and you’re done! It’s so easy.
What's the difference between lemon filling and lemon curd?
Lemon filling or custard is usually thickened with cornstarch and can be cooked in a regular saucepan. Lemon curd is richer, with more egg yolks and lots of butter, no water or cornstarch, and is usually made in a double boiler. They can be used pretty interchangeably.
How to use lemon Cake filling
- Fill a layer cake.
- Serve it in a bowl with a dollop of whipped cream.
- Make lemon custard tarts with pre-baked pastry shells or mini phyllo cups.
- Layer it in a trifle with angel food cake or pound cake, with sliced fresh strawberries or blackberries.
- Fill cupcakes. Make your cupcakes extra special with a hidden jewel of lemon filling.
What flavors of cake go well with lemon cake filling?
Lemon cake filling goes well with white cake (try my white cake with lemon filling and lemon cream cheese frosting!), yellow cake, or lemon cake. Try it layered in a trifle with pound cake, angel food cake, or lady fingers.
Lemon cake filling will keep in the fridge up to a week, tightly covered.
More Lemon Recipes
Lemon Cake Filling
Ingredients
- ½ cup sugar
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 egg yolks
- ¾ cup water
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- ⅓ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
Instructions
- Have all your ingredients ready before you begin. Mix sugar, cornstarch and salt in a small saucepan. Add egg yolks and mix until egg yolks are completely mixed with dry ingredients. Whisk in water until mixture is smooth.
- Cook over medium low heat until just boiling. Mixture will be quite thick. Immediately remove from heat and stir in butter. Gradually whisk in lemon juice until smooth. Stir in zest.
- Pour into a bowl and cover the surface of the filling with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour. Makes 1 ¼ cups.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Did You Make This?Share a comment and rating below! I love hearing what you think!
Just made this recipe. Super easy and loved it! My only suggestions for the instructions would be to stir the mixture constantly while it’s heating, to keep it from clumping and to use a silicone whisk. The taste of this recipe is delicious and it yields a really good amount for the 4 layer (3 lemon filling layers) cake I’ve made.
Thank you for your feedback!
The lemon flavor is excellent, very rich! After mixing the dry ingredients with the egg yolks, the mixture was clumpy and didn’t combine very quickly with the water. It seemed like it took longer to complete this recipe than it should have. Is there a reason you don’t mix the water and dry ingredients together first then add the egg yolks?
We tested this recipe a few different ways and found this to be the best method.
Looks great and use it a lot in the cakes I make but would much prefer if you used grams and millilitres as it is much better in larger sizes
Thank you for the feedback :)
Just made the filling for christening cake . Thank you
You’re so welcome!
I just made this recipe and is delicious thank you so much for the recipe!!
So happy to hear it! Thank you for leaving a review!
I’ve made this recipe as is for a lemon Blueberry cake, it was delicious! Could I do this with orange as well?
I haven’t tested it with orange, but I don’t see why not!
In the actual recipe you forgot to mention adding the butter. I had it ready to go but didn’t end up using it because it wasn’t in the instructions…
Hi Ness, the butter is added in step 2. Sorry you missed it!
Easy to follow directions. Very tasty
Thank so much!
Can this be frozen? I have a huge crop of lemons and am trying to use them up so they don’t go to waste. Made 3 bathes of lemon curd but am looking for something to freeze in custard cups and use as a stand alone desert.
I haven’t tried freezing this so I can’t be sure, sorry!
I tried this today and followed the recipe to a T. However, it seems way too soft. I cooked it till just before boiling(which the recipe said) and it wasn’t how you described as being quite thick. Is it that this filling needs to be cooked till it thickens or still just before boiling? The taste is nice lemony though!
It should be thickened by the time you’re done cooking it. It will get a little thicker as it cools, but it should have a pretty thick consistency before you stop cooking it.