Pudding Chomeur (Canadian Maple Pudding)

Yesterday was Canada Day. If I were in Canada, I think we would likely be having a BBQ somewhere, perhaps at the family cabin, and there would be various types of meat and salads, and probably burgers. Since I have ended up here over Canada day, I thought it would be a nice excuse to make some Canadian dishes, especially ones that I would think are too fussy or indulgent to make otherwise - and I thought there really needed to be something with maple syrup, since, as we all know, Canadian cuisine is synonymous with maple syrup in the minds of many.

Truthfully, I had been looking for an excuse to make this dessert for months anyway. I was introduced to it last summer when a French-Canadian friend of my sister's made it for us, after which we ate the whole thing over the course of a few days. It was utterly addictive. It is a sort of pudding, but without any of the bain-marie fussiness that I mentally associate with puddings. Taste-wise I would liken it to an indulgent fluffy pancake up to its knees in maple syrup. It has a rather long cooking time, but it is dead simple to make - provided you can get your hands on enough maple syrup and some heavy cream. And of course, this needs to be made with real maple syrup. The recipe I am including here is a half-batch of the recipe I was originally given, as I think it makes quite a big batch already. But you can easily double it to feed a larger group, and that way you would use a full can of maple syrup.

NOTE: I more recently made this recipe with 1/2 cup maple syrup and 1/2 cup brown sugar, and I liked it even better than the full maple syrup version (and it's a lot cheaper). So I recommend using half and half maple syrup and brown sugar. But either way is delicious! Enjoy.

Pudding Chomeur (Canadian Maple Pudding) 

Trans. Unemployment Pudding, because I guess maple syrup is cheap in Quebec? It's not cheap in Saskatchewan, but we still love it!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup pure maple syrup OR 1/2 cup maple syrup and 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 90 ml (or 3/4 of a half cup) of milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F or 200 degrees C
2. In a medium saucepan, bring the maple syrup (and or syrup and brown sugar, if using) and heavy cream to a simmer, and pour into a souffle dish or baking pan with the capacity of 5 cups or 1 1/4 litres
3. In a small bowl, whisk together dry ingredients
4. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until smooth and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and stir smooth
5. Add the dry ingredients into the batter in three batches, alternating with the milk
6. With a table spoon or 1/8 cup measure, drop spoonfuls of the batter over the maple syrup mixture, covering as much of the syrup as you can, but not stirring it in to the syrup
7. Place the cake pan or dish on a baking sheet (in case the sauce spills out as it bakes)
8. Bake in the preheated oven, on the center rack, for 20-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.  It would take about 40 minutes if you did a double batch of this recipe
9. Serve warm or cold. I love it best warm, and it is delicious with ice cream if you want indulge even more

Enjoy! And a happy belated Canada Day to all!