As the pond ice and the sea smoke thicken, it’s finally time for foods that answer cold and dark with steaming and rich.  Pouding Chomeur is a Quebecois country dessert - or breakfast, or if you’re really lucky and hungry, dinner - of a basic dough baked in cream and maple syrup.  Translated, it means “poor man’s pudding,” - or, literally, “unemployed-man’s pudding.”  Created, according to wikipedia, by Canadian women during The Great Depression, when maple syrup and cream probably poured freely and inexpensively in Quebec kitchens, this pudding might not be so purse-easy for us, but it is still a culinary revelation, one only someone with French genes could have invented.

The dough - a basic creamed butter and sugar, add flour and baking powder mixture -  is made a full day in advance.  The recipe actually requires the dough sit for 24 hours.

An hour before the pudding is ready to be served, large spoonfuls of dough are dropped into a baking dish.  The cream and maple syrup are heated together, allowed to cool, and then poured over the dough.  The whole is baked, and becomes a luscious celebration of cake with a ready-made maple caramelization.   The composition - light pudding, fluffy cake, cloud-like pancake arrives at the table steaming hot with this suave, sap-cum-treacle.  It may be easy to create, and its origins may be homespun, but this dessert - for its fascinating texture and non-chocolate and vanilla qualities - challenges any mousse or creme caramel for a spot on a fine dining winter menu.

But it also belongs in a kitchen, at a family’s table.  In fact, my version of the recipe arrived via my brother, who prepared this for our families gathered together last week after my mother passed suddenly away.  We were all numb and quiet, but this dessert  - steaming hot from the oven - brightened each of us - from the youngest grandchild to my mother’s eighty-year-old sister.

My brother’s version is lifted from the blog Lottie + Doof, who adapted it from the well known Montreal restaurant, a temple of traditional French Farm Table cuisine, Au Pied du Cochon.

 

 

 

 

 

Pouding Chômeur

serves 6-8

 

6 oz butter, at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 and three quarters cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 cups maple syrup

2 cups heavy cream

Combine the butter and sugar in stand mixer until smooth. Add the eggs and beat at medium speed until completely incorporated. Add the flour and baking powder and stir until the flour is completely incorporated. Refrigerate dough for at least 24 hours.

Preheat oven to 450°F. Bring the maple syrup and heavy cream to a boil in a saucepan. Turn off heat, add a pinch of salt and set aside to cool. Divide the dough among 5 or 6 ramekins or oven-safe bowls and set them on a large rimmed baking sheet.  Or, "dot" heaping 1/2 cup portions of the dough into a glass rectangular baking dish.  Fill each ramekin, or the  baking pan, just over half full with 3/4 cup of the maple cream mixture. Bake for 20-25 minutes - either ramekin or baking dish - or until the puddings are golden brown and a tester inserted into the center of each cake comes out clean. Let cool for 5 minutes, serve warm.