Lemon Pudding With Cream Cheese Frosting

Homemade lemon pudding is perfectly sweet, lemony, and absolutely heavenly with a rich cream cheese frosting spooned on top.

Homemade lemon pudding is in the house and you’re about to absolutely fall in love with this lemony dessert.

As if the homemade pudding wasn’t enough we’re taking things a step further and throwing some cream cheese frosting into the party. Nothing could ever go wrong with that.

If you’ve never tried making pudding from scratch, you’re in for a real treat today! We’re loading up this creamy pudding with SO much fresh lemon flavor making it way better than boxed mix.

While simultaneously making it a bit harder to stop eating. Sorry in advance.

This Lemon Pudding features…

• Lots of fresh lemon flavor
• A perfectly smooth and creamy texture
• Rich and silky cream cheese frosting
• Minutes to make with only a handful of ingredients

Making the Pudding

(scroll down to the bottom of the post for the full recipe)

Ingredients You Will Need

• Egg yolks
• Granulated sugar
• 2% or skim milk
• Cornstarch
• Lemon
• Unsalted butter
• Cream cheese
• Powdered sugar
• Vanilla extract

Tips for Perfect Pudding

1. Use fresh lemon – fresh lemon juice and zest make a world of difference flavor-wise.
2. Temper egg yolks – slowly whisk a small amount of hot milk into egg yolks to temper them and prevent scrambling before adding all back to saucepan.
3. Add lemon to pudding offheat – wait until the pudding is finished cooking to add the lemon juice and zest so the lemon keeps its bright flavor.
4. Chill pudding before serving – we recommend chilling pudding 2 hours before serving so it can set up a bit.
5. Press plastic wrap directly on pudding for chilling – this will prevent a skin from forming on top.

Recipe Variations

Try these ideas for a different twist on this pudding.

• Use a different citrus – try grapefruit, orange, or lime in place of the lemon.
• Skip the frosting – we love the extra richness the cream cheese frosting gives this pudding, but you can easily leave it off for a more classic pudding.
• Garnish pudding with fruit – try fresh raspberries, blueberries, or strawberries.

Storing Pudding

This pudding stores well in refrigerator up to 4 days. We recommend spooning it into serving dishes for chilling so it makes for easy serving later.

You can also make the cream cheese frosting ahead of time and store in refrigerator up to 1 week. For best results, we recommend topping pudding with cream cheese frosting just before serving.

The punch of fresh lemon juice and zest really works its magic in this smooth and creamy pudding! Paired with the sweet tanginess of the cream cheese frosting and we’ve got an absolute dessert queen.

Dare I say, you’ll never go back to the boxed pudding mix after one taste of this??

Save this recipe using the ‘save to recipe box’ button below. If you make it, please let us know! Leave a comment + star rating below, or take a photo and tag it on Instagram with #wholeandheavenlyoven.

Watch this pudding made step-by-step on Google web stories.

More lemony delights to make next!

• Poppyseed Lemon Olive Oil Cake
• Lemon Shortbread Cookies
• Coconut Lemon Curd Thumbprint Cookies

This post was updated with new recipe tips and photos on 2/29/24.