I posted this picture on instagram shortly after troughing my way through several, and was flooded with emails from people asking for the recipe.

Absolutely not mine, this comes courtesy of the lovely Lucie who – along with her husband – owns the rambling, magical and unpretentious pile that is Chateau de Chamballan. She’s the most incredible, natural cook and we’ve adored eating her French home cooked creations which taste better than most restaurants I have ever eaten in, anywhere. She. Is. That. Good.

And to top it all off, her presentation wins her massive bonus points:

Without further a-do, here’s the recipe for her lemon pudding. Very versatile, one of the ways you can serve it is in shot glasses, each one accompanied by a simple Breton butter biscuit or stick of Scottish shortbread for crunch. Jug of cream optional.

Lucie’s Lemon Pudding (pictured above)

Spoiler alert: Hold your breath – the calories are scary.

Ingredients:
-Juice of 4 or 5 unwaxed lemons (about 150 ml). Make sure they are warm/ sunny window sill temperature when you juice them.
-Zest of 3 of them
-220g sugar
-170g butter, cubed
-4 eggs and 1 egg yolk

Method:
Beat the eggs together. Put the lemon zest and juice, the sugar and the butter (cut into cubes) into a heavy bottomed saucepan and add the egg mixture. Heat over a super low flame stirring constantly for 10-15 minutes (can be longer) until the butter has melted. Do not let it boil.

Stir with a whisk until it is looking like lemon curd. Wap the heat up for a matter of 5 seconds, stirring all the time, then sieve the mixture immediately before covering it and leaving it in the fridge for as long as possible. Try to make it the day before so it has ample time to chill.

It will keep for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator provided you jar it up as you would jam (sterilised jar etc).

Spread it into a precooked almond pastry case and you have the classic tarte au citron; dollop it between two meringues and you have a finger food version of lemon meringue pie…

But I prefer the shot glass/biscuit option accompanied by plenty of cream.

Lucie will be contributing more recipes over the coming months, including her low-carb secret that really makes giving up potato easy.