Lemon lush dessert, with layers of pecan shortbread crust, lemon cream cheese filling, homemade lemon pudding and fresh whipped cream, all made from scratch. Each element of this cool, creamy and fluffy lemon dessert is homemade, with no boxed lemon pudding mix and no Cool Whip!
You might also love these high altitude recipes for iced lemon curd linzer cookies, lemon poppy seed cake, and baked lemon sugar cake donuts.
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What’s Lemon Lush?
Lemon lush is a layered dessert that’s popular in the South. It features a buttery, press-in-the-pan pecan shortbread crumble crust. Then a layer of sweetened cream cheese. Next comes a bright, sunny layer of lemon pudding. And lastly, it’s topped with whipped cream. My mom made this dessert often when I was a kid, and while she called it lemon fluff, it’s more commonly known as lemon lush.
Most recipes today use boxed lemon pudding mix and frozen whipped topping. But each element of my recipe is made from scratch, with real, flavorful, delicious ingredients.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Everything Homemade. If you’re anything like me, you’d much prefer to make things from scratch than bake from a boxed mix. Cool Whip contains gross oils and high fructose corn syrup, and tastes nothing like real whipped cream. Boxed lemon pudding mix is full of dyes and artificial flavors, and doesn’t even list real lemons on the ingredients list. Homemade is so much better, trust me.
Fresh, Cool and Creamy. This is the ultimate dessert for spring and summer. It’s cool, creamy, tangy, sweet and tart, and makes a wonderful dessert to serve on a warm evening.
High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you’re at a lower or higher elevation, please see my FAQs for guidance on adjusting recipes for your altitude. Note that today’s recipe will work at any altitude. The only thing that might be affected by altitude is how long it will take the lemon pudding to thicken.
See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.
Ingredients
Shortbread Crust
For the shortbread crust, you’ll need all-purpose flour, pecans, granulated sugar, salt and butter. The crust is nutty, buttery and crumbly. It’s easy to mix together, either with a food processor or pastry cutter. Then you simply press it into the pan and bake it until golden brown.
Cream Cheese Filling
The cream cheese filling is a simple mixture of block cream cheese, powdered sugar, lemon juice and vanilla extract. Just mix it all together until smooth and creamy, and spread over the crust.
Lemon Pudding
Homemade lemon pudding is so much tastier than pudding mix. You’ll need granulated sugar, fresh lemon zest and lemon juice, corn starch to thicken it, egg yolks, whole milk and heavy whipping cream. Don’t substitute lower fat milk or cream; you need the high fat content to stabilize the acidity of the lemon juice and prevent curdling. You can also add a drop or two of “lemon yellow” gel food coloring, for a more vibrant color. Without the food coloring, it will be a bit paler.
Whipped Cream
Homemade whipped cream just requires heavy whipping cream, powdered sugar and vanilla extract.
Instructions
Bake and cool the crust.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. With non-stick baking spray, lightly spray just the bottom of an 8 or 9 inch baking pan. Baker’s Note: I used an 8-inch pan. If you use a 9-inch pan, your layers will be a little thinner.
- In a bowl, combine the flour, chopped pecans, sugar and salt. Add the butter, and use a pastry cutter to cut the butter in until moist and crumbly. Or, use a food processor to pulse the mixture until the butter is evenly distributed and the mixture is moist and crumbly.
- Press the crumbs evenly against the bottom of the pan. Bake for about 12-15 minutes, until golden brown. Set aside to cool completely before adding the layers of filling.
Add the lemon cream cheese filling.
- Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese, powdered sugar, lemon juice and vanilla for several minutes until smooth and creamy.
- Spread the cream cheese filling evenly over the baked and cooled crust. Refrigerate until the lemon pudding is ready.
Make the lemon pudding.
- Measure the sugar into a bowl, then zest the lemons over the sugar. Use your fingers to rub the lemon zest into the sugar.
- Cut the lemons and juice them into a glass measuring cup to get 1/2 cup of juice.
- In a medium sized saucepan, whisk together the lemon sugar with the corn starch. Whisk in the lemon juice until smooth, then whisk in the egg yolks.
- Add the milk and the cream (and the yellow food coloring, if using), and whisk until combined.
- Place the saucepan over medium to medium low heat. Use a silicone spatula to stir the mixture constantly, while gently cooking the pudding.
- Cook until the pudding starts to thicken enough to coat the spatula, and is just beginning to bubble, but do not let the pudding start boiling hard. This should take about 15 minutes of cooking for the pudding to thicken. Remove from the heat.
- Set a mesh strainer over a bowl, and press the pudding through the strainer to remove the zest.
- Place a piece of plastic wrap over the bowl, with the plastic resting right against the surface of the pudding to prevent a skin from forming. Let cool at room temperature for one hour, until warm, but no longer steaming hot.
- Spread the pudding over the cream cheese layer. Refrigerate the lemon lush, uncovered, for at least 3 hours, until the pudding is well chilled.
Top with whipped cream.
- With an electric mixer, whip the cold heavy whipping cream with the powdered sugar and vanilla until fluffy, stiff peaks form. Spread the whipped cream over the lemon pudding layer.
- Use a sharp knife to cut the lemon lush into 9 squares. The first piece is the hardest to get out cleanly, but once the first piece is out, it’s easier to slide a spatula under the cut squares to lift them out. You can also just scoop it out with a spoon into bowls.
- Keep the leftover dessert refrigerated for up to 2 days.
Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I make lemon lush in advance?
You can bake and cool the crust one day in advance. For everything else, I suggest making and assembling it the morning of, so it’s ready to serve after dinner.
Can I use other types of nuts in the crust?
Besides pecans, you could use almonds or walnuts.
How can I make the crust nut free?
For a shortbread crust without nuts, you can use this shortbread crust recipe.
How thick does the lemon pudding get as it cools?
The lemon pudding is a bit soft, but holds up in this layered dessert. For a slightly firmer set, you can increase the corn starch from 3 tbsp to 4 tbsp. This dessert is supposed to be soft, light and creamy, though, so you don’t want the pudding to be too firm and jelled.
Why doesn’t the lemon juice curdle the milk in the pudding?
Thanks to the high fat content of whole milk and heavy whipping cream, the acid in the lemon juice is stabilized, so it won’t curdle. You also need to heed the instructions and not let the pudding boil. Take it off the heat as soon as it thickens, but before it begins to boil.
Can this recipe be doubled?
You can double this lemon lush recipe and assemble it in a 9×13 baking pan.
What pan did you use?
I used this USA Bakeware 8-inch Square Pan.
Would this recipe work in a trifle dish?
This creamy lemon dessert would look beautiful layered in a glass trifle dish. Bake the crust in a pan as instructed, let cool, then crumble it up. Layer the crumbled crust, cream cheese filling, lemon pudding and whipped cream in a pretty footed trifle dish, so that all the layers can be seen through the glass. Scoop servings into pretty bowls. You could even make individual trifles in glass jam jars, mini trifle dishes, or parfait glasses.
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From Scratch Lemon Lush Dessert
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Food Processor or Pastry Cutter
- Electric Mixer (Stand or Hand-Held)
- Medium-Sized Saucepan
Ingredients
Shortbread Crust
- ⅔ cup flour
- ⅓ cup unsalted pecans, very finely chopped
- 2 ½ tbsp granulated sugar
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 5 ½ tbsp cold unsalted butter, sliced or cubed
Cream Cheese Filling
- 12 oz (1 1/2 blocks) full fat cream cheese, softened for 2 hours
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 ½ tbsp lemon juice
- ¾ tsp vanilla extract
Lemon Pudding
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- fresh zest of 2 small lemons
- 3 tbsp corn starch (use up to 4 tbsp for a more firm "set" to the pudding)
- ½ cup fresh lemon juice (from 3-4 small lemons)
- 3 egg yolks (save the whites for another use)
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 2 drops "lemon yellow" gel food coloring, optional
Whipped Cream
- 1 cup cold heavy whipping cream
- 2 tbsp powdered sugar
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
Bake and cool the crust.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. With non-stick baking spray, lightly spray just the bottom of an 8 or 9 inch baking pan.Baker's Note: I used an 8-inch pan. If you use a 9-inch pan, your layers will be a little thinner.
- In a bowl, combine the flour, chopped pecans, sugar and salt. Add the butter, and use a pastry cutter to cut the butter in until moist and crumbly. Or, use a food processor to pulse the mixture until the butter is evenly distributed and the mixture is moist and crumbly.
- Press the crumbs evenly against the bottom of the pan. Bake for about 12-15 minutes, until golden brown. Set aside to cool completely before adding the layers of filling.
Add the lemon cream cheese filling.
- Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese, powdered sugar, lemon juice and vanilla for several minutes until smooth and creamy.
- Spread the cream cheese filling evenly over the baked and cooled crust. Refrigerate until the lemon pudding is ready.
Make the lemon pudding.
- Measure the sugar into a bowl, then zest the lemons over the sugar. Use your fingers to rub the lemon zest into the sugar.Cut the lemons and juice them into a glass measuring cup to get 1/2 cup of juice.
- In a medium sized saucepan, whisk together the lemon sugar with the corn starch. Whisk in the lemon juice until smooth, then whisk in the egg yolks.
- Add the milk and the cream (and the yellow food coloring, if using), and whisk until combined.
- Place the saucepan over medium to medium low heat. Use a silicone spatula to stir the mixture constantly, while gently cooking the pudding. Cook until the pudding starts to thicken enough to coat the spatula, and is just beginning to bubble, but do not let the pudding start boiling hard. This should take about 15 minutes of cooking for the pudding to thicken. Remove from the heat.
- Set a mesh strainer over a bowl, and press the pudding through the strainer to remove the zest.
- Place a piece of plastic wrap over the bowl, with the plastic resting right against the surface of the pudding to prevent a skin from forming. Let cool at room temperature for one hour, until warm, but no longer steaming hot.
- Spread the pudding over the cream cheese layer. Refrigerate the lemon lush, uncovered, for at least 3 hours, until the pudding is well chilled.
Top with whipped cream
- With an electric mixer, whip the cold heavy whipping cream with the powdered sugar and vanilla until fluffy, stiff peaks form. Spread the whipped cream over the lemon pudding layer.
- Use a sharp knife to cut the lemon lush into 9 squares. The first piece is the hardest to get out cleanly, but once the first piece is out, it's easier to slide a spatula under the cut squares to lift them out. You can also just scoop it out with a spoon into bowls.
- Keep the leftover dessert refrigerated for up to 2 days.
Lynne U
Hi Heather, this looks amazing! I definitely want to try this one but have family members with severe nut allergies. Would your shortbread crust that you use on your brownies work for this recipe? Thanks.
Heather Smoke
Yes, that would work great!
Jilly Blackett
Absolutely gorgeous. Your instruction is clear and thorough. Every component is delish on its own but together is luxury. I have every intention of making this something I become famous for in my circle of friends – giving all the LOVE to Curly Girl! 💛💛
Also: I’m gonna experiment and make pecan shortbread with the crust recipe. Yummmmmm. #allthestarshighlyrecommend. ✨
Vicki
Loved recipe but I thought the cream cheese filling was sweet enough with half the sugar.
Kim
Hi Heather! This was DELISH!! I love that the pudding and whipped cream are made from scratch. I was blown away with how good the pudding itself is. I tweaked the whip cream recipe because I have a bit of a sweet tooth. I like to garnish the top with pecans too. The creamy and crunchy is amazing!
Susan Lara
AMAZING!!! Made it for my husband’s birthday. He wanted a change from chocolate. Brought the remains to work; loved by all with a comparison to key lime pie. I’m making it again soon for a family gathering. It is so worth all the steps!