High Altitude Lemon Pudding Poke Cake

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A high altitude lemon poke cake, starting with a fluffy vanilla sheet cake, lightly soaked with milk, then topped with homemade lemon pudding and swirls of whipped cream. This cool and creamy dessert is perfect for summer parties and BBQs!

You might also love these high altitude recipes for limoncello cream cake, chocolate Kahlua and cream cake, and bourbon banana pudding cake.

Lemon pudding cake topped with swirls of whipped cream and lemon pudding.

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Everything Homemade. Today’s recipe for lemon poke cake with pudding is completely made from scratch. There’s no boxed cake mix, no jello, no instant lemon pudding and no Cool Whip. Just simple, delicious ingredients.

Make Ahead. This is a wonderful dessert to make for a party, potluck or summer get together, since you can assemble it in the morning, and just keep it refrigerated until ready to serve that afternoon or 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.

A slice of lemon pudding cake on a plate.

See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.

Ingredients

Vanilla Cake

For the cake, I’m using my favorite recipe for vanilla sheet cake, which is always so soft, fluffy and moist. You’ll need cake flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, eggs, buttermilk, butter, vegetable oil and vanilla extract.

Lemon Pudding

Homemade lemon pudding is so much better than boxed pudding mixes. My recipe uses fresh lemon zest and juice, sugar, egg yolks, corn starch, milk and cream. For today’s cake, I’ve scaled my original recipe down just slightly.

Whipped Cream

The whipped cream is made with the usual ingredients of heavy whipping cream, powdered sugar and vanilla extract, but I also add some cream cheese for stability, so it doesn’t deflate on the leftover cake.

Instructions

Vanilla Cake

Bake the Vanilla Cake as instructed, in a 9×13 inch baking dish.
Let the cake cool for about 30 minutes, then use the end of a chopstick or wooden skewer and prick the cake all over. Brush or drizzle the reserved 1/2 cup of milk over the cake.
While the cake is baking, go ahead and make the lemon pudding, so that it’s ready to spread over the cake at this point.

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 30 minutes.

Lemon pudding covered with plastic wrap.

Assembly

At this point, the cake should have cooled for 30 minutes, and you’ve already poked the cake full of holes and brushed it with the reserved 1/2 cup of milk.
Set aside 1/2 cup of the lemon pudding, then pour the rest of the warm pudding all over the cake, and spread it out into an even layer.
Set the cake and the reserved 1/2 cup of pudding in the refrigerator to chill for 1 1/2 – 2 hours, until the cake is cool and the pudding is set.

Step 1 for making lemon pudding poke cake.

Step 2 for making lemon pudding poke cake.

Whipped Cream

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or using a hand-held electric mixer), beat the cold cream cheese with the powdered sugar for about 1 minute on medium speed, until smooth.
Scrape the bowl down, then add the vanilla and about 1/4 cup of the cream. Beat on medium speed for 30-60 seconds to smooth out any lumps of cream cheese.
Add the remainder of the cream, and switch to the whisk attachment. (You can also continue to use the paddle attachment, but it will take a few minutes longer).
Whip the cream on medium high speed for several minutes, stopping to scrape the bowl down once or twice, until thick fluffy peaks form that hold their shape.
Spread the whipped cream over the lemon pudding, using a spoon or offset icing spatula to make some pretty swirls. Then dollop the reserved 1/2 cup lemon pudding on top of the whipped cream, and gently swirl it in.

Lemon pudding cake in a white baking dish.

Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common questions with cake making, so that you can be successful in your own baking! I also suggest reading these comprehensive posts on making Perfect American Buttercream, How to Stack, Fill, Crumb Coat and Frost Layer Cakes and How to Use Piping Bags.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does lemon poke cake need to be refrigerated?

Store the leftover cake in the refrigerator, with the pan covered with plastic wrap, or individual pieces stored in an airtight container, for up to 3 days.

Can I use lemon curd instead of the lemon pudding?

While you can use lemon curd instead, it’s a much richer ingredient, with far more butter and sugar, while the lemon pudding is thinned out from the addition of milk and cream. If using store bought lemon curd, you’ll need to warm it up slightly to a pourable consistency, before pouring it over the cake.

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 hard.

Lemon pudding swirled with whipped cream.

Slices of lemon bundt cake. — Lemon Bundt Cake

Coconut cream sheet cake cut into squares. — Lemon Bundt Cake

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