When life gives you lemons, you make this smooth and creamy lemon fudge. It’s a delicious sweet treat and, using a homemade easy lemon simple syrup, sweetened condensed milk and white chocolate, this fudge is super easy to make at home.
You may (or may not) have come across my recipe for lemon fudge before. I wanted to get some gorgeous new shots of this fudge and at the same time, I did some extra testing to make the recipe easier and even better than it was originally. Well, I’m happy to say, I succeeded in both.
This updated recipe is now even easier to make than the original version and it uses the flavour of real lemons, turned into a simple syrup instead of the lemon extract that the original called for. The flavour of this fudge is like lemony white chocolate and it’s lovely.
Once you’ve made a lemon simple syrup – which just happens to be wonderful on everything from waffles to pancakes, in cocktails and over cakes – you just need three more ingredients – butter, white chocolate and sweetened condensed milk.
I add a touch of yellow food colouring to brighten it up, then sprinkle over white and yellow sprinkles. I’ve also added edible yellow glitter before, to make it fun and sparkly.
Is This Traditional Fudge?
If you’re looking for a traditional fudge recipe, this is not it, however, it does have the classic fudge texture and richness. This is a cheats version, and I’m ok with that since success in trying to master the traditional method has so far eluded me. It ends up in tears. Real big girl sobs 🙁 No, not really but it can be seriously frustrating. That’s why I love this recipe. It’s pretty hard to go wrong.
How To Make Easy Lemon Fudge
The lemon simple syrup just takes some lemon juice, sugar and lemon zest, boiled in a pan for around 10 minutes until it’s reduced by half and thick and syrupy. See more about this simple syrup here.
In a fresh pan, melt together the sweetened condensed milk, white chocolate and butter. Once it’s smooth add in the lemon syrup and zest and give it a good mix.
Pour it into a lined 8 inch square baking tin, then scatter white and yellow sprinkles all over the top. Let it sit at room temperature for half an hour, then transfer to the fridge to set for at least 6 hours or overnight.
Turn It Into Lemon Meringue Fudge
You can turn this easy lemon fudge into lemon meringue fudge, just by crumbling up some shop-bought meringue and scattering in the baking tin before or after you pour the fudge in.
How To Store it
This bright and zesty fudge is quite soft which is what makes it so creamy and smooth but this does mean it should be kept in the fridge at all times. Left out at room temperature, it will soften and become a little sticky.
Let the fudge set in the fridge overnight so it’s super cold, then use a sharp knife to cut it into squares. At this point, I like to wrap each one with a little rectangle of baking paper, just so that it’s not so sticky to handle.
After that, it’s fine stored in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
It can also be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months, again in an airtight container. It can be eaten straight from the freezer as it never freezes rock hard due to the sugar content. The texture of fudge that has been frozen will be ever so slightly grainy but still totally delicious.
Great For Gifting
Lemon fudge makes a great food gift since it keeps so well. Pack it up in a cute box and gift it for Mothers Day, Birthdays, Easter or Christmas. You can use this simple gift tag too – just print it out on some quality paper, cut them out and fold in the centre. Just punch a little hole and tie it with a pretty ribbon.
After my Salted Caramel Fudge, this is definitely my favourite fudge recipe. Since fudge is very sweet, the lemon tang is a lovely contrast. I don’t know about you but I have a lot of lemon lovers in my life, so being able to give these little easy lemon fudge squares as a gift is so fun.
Get the Lemon Fudge gift Tag here.
More Easy Fudge Recipes
- Butter Popcorn Easy Fudge
- Milo Tim Tam Chocolate Fudge
- Caramel Peanut Fudge
- Easy Dark Chocolate Fudge
- Salted Caramel Fudge
Easy Lemon Fudge
Ingredients
- 3-4 lemons (notes)
- 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
- 1 can (395ml / 14oz) sweetened condensed milk
- 115 g unsalted butter
- 550 g (2 3/4 cups) white chocolate, roughly chopped
- zest of 1/2 a lemon, extra
- Yellow food colouring
- Sprinkles or edible glitter
Instructions
- Line an 8x8 inch square baking tin with baking paper.
- To make the lemon simple syrup, use a peeler to peel just the yellow part of one lemon (you don't want the white part).
- Juice the lemons until you have 1/2 cup of strained lemon juice (make sure it's free of pulp and pips).
- Place the peel from one lemon, lemon juice and sugar in a small heavy-based saucepan over medium heat.
- Bring it to a boil and cook stirring every so often for 7-10 minutes, until thickened and reduced by about half. It should be the colour of very pale honey. Set aside.
- Combine the sweetened condensed milk, butter and white chocolate in a medium heavy-based saucepan. Stir over low-medium heat, without boiling, until everything is melted and combined.
- Take it off the heat and add the lemon syrup, lemon zest and a drop or two of yellow food colouring (if using). Mix to combine.
- Pour the mixture into the lined baking tin. Top with sprinkles.
- Leave for 30 minutes to cool at room temperature, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
- Cut into squares and serve.
Notes
- For the lemon syrup, you'll use just the peel of one and 1/2 cup of lemon juice. Peel or zest all the lemons and you can freeze it for use in the future or for adding a little zing to fried or roast chicken.
- Turn this into Lemon Meringue Fudge by adding crushed up shop-bought meringues to the pan before or after the fudge has been poured in.
- Get the gift tag and make a gift of it.
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16 Comments on “Easy Lemon Fudge”
7: “Take it off the heat and add the lemon syrup, lemon zest and a drop or two…”
The zest is in the syrup by now isn’t it? Did I miss a step? Was there supposed to be two lots of zest?
Thanks for the recipe, I found the mix was not quite tangy enough, so used 3 lemons zest and juice, plus some extra lime juice!
There are two lots of zest. Ingredient number 6 is extra lemon zest. Just finely zest that and it will stay in the fudge. The large pieces of zest from step 2 is the ones you remove.
Hi, can I use white compound for this..?
You could but the flavour won’t be as good
I moved to a new place that has a lemon tree in the backyard and it’s been raining lemons all summer! I found this recipe as I was looking for things to do with all the fruit, and it was a winner with me, my housemates, and many of my friends.
My one question is about it’s ability to withstand heat. You mention it’s not a “real fudge” and I noticed yesterday when it was out of the fridge for a little while that it became very soft and gooey. Does really fudge not do that? Is there a way to have this fudge keep it’s shape at room temperature?
This is such a great treat, thank you for sharing the recipe!
Hello Juliana, no this is a soft fudge and best enjoyed straight from the fridge. If you think about the ingredients, we’re relying mainly on white chocolate to solidify this as everything else is liquid. You could certainly cook it longer to try to caramelise the sugar but then you’ll end up with brown lemon fudge. Totally fine and it can certainly work but I really wanted a nice yellow fudge. Hope that all makes sense 🙂
Hi, i attempted this yeaterday and left it overnight in the fridge as directed. What I’ve got is more like lemon curd. It tastes lovely just hasn’t set properly. do you know where I went wrong? Or have any ideas as to how to use it now as you can’t even cut it
Hi Sophie, this would just be because your lemon syrup didn’t reduce far enough. You can put the whole lot back in the pan and bring it to a low bubble stirring constantly so that it doesn’t burn. Keep it there for 5-6 minutes and you should see it thicken further. You could also add more white chocolate or freeze it and eat it frozen 🙂
Hi! Thanks for sharing this beautiful recipe, I love lemons!!!
Can you please tell me how much syrup goes into the recipe if you’re using pre-cooked syrup?! I made citronat (candid lemons) which is a vital ingredient in my grandma’s German gingerbread recipe. I was looking for a recipe to use the syrup that is now a leftover product and found yours.
I have about 400ml of syrup, made from sugar and lemon juice. Would this work with your recipe?
Thanks a lot! Kind wishes
Lily
Sounds lovely Lily, you need about 1/2 cup or 125ml. As I’m not sure how strong your syrup is, maybe just add 1/3 cup. Do a little taste test once everything is combine (careful to let it cool a bit first) then see if you need the rest. I’d love to hear how it goes
I’d greatly appreciate a video! That believe that would be quite helpful. I cooked the mixture on medium to medium low heat the entire time, usually keeping the heat closer to the lower end of the range.
Hi Heather, I’ve made this recipe easier and even more delicious and it will be republished with this new recipe in a few days. I’ve emailed you the recipe for early access if you were wanting to try it again.
Hey do you have video of it..?
Not yet Amita, but I will add one in the future.
So I just tried making this delicious looking fudge. I followed all the directions to a tee and ended up with something that looks and tastes like caramel (didn’t get to the point where I could even add the lemon extract) and my mixture never got as thick as your directions describe. Just wondering where I may have gone wrong??
The only thing I can think is the heat was too high, causing the sugar to caramelise. I’ll be redoing photos for this recipe soon so I’ll work on a video as well for a visual aid.