Pouding Chômeur

Rural Quebec·Easy·20 min

A simple sponge-cake batter baked with a hot maple-syrup or brown-sugar sauce poured over it, which sinks in to form a sticky caramel puddle as it bakes. The most iconic dessert of Quebec home cooking, created during the Great Depression.

Pouding chômeur, unemployed man's pudding, is the most iconic dessert of Quebec home cooking, created during the Great Depression of 1929 by female factory workers using cheap pantry staples. A simple sponge-cake batter is baked with a hot maple-syrup or brown-sugar sauce poured over it, which sinks in to form a sticky caramel puddle as it bakes. The maple version is now considered the most authentic. The dish is a literal symbol of Quebecois resilience and is on Slow Food's Ark of Taste.

A light, tender sponge sitting in a pool of hot, sticky, deeply caramelized maple or brown-sugar sauce, the sponge soaked through at the bottom. Eaten warm with cream, it is intensely sweet, sticky and the essence of comfort.

The cake batter is a simple sponge of flour, butter, sugar, milk and baking powder, spread in a baking dish. The hot sauce of maple syrup or brown sugar and cream is poured over the raw batter; as it bakes, the batter rises and the sauce sinks, so the cake ends up floating on a caramel puddle. The magic is that the two do not mix; the sauce pools beneath while the cake sets above.

Variations

A brown-sugar version uses cassonade instead of maple. Some add cream for a richer sauce.

On the Palate

Where Pouding Chômeur sits in the Canadian flavor cloud

Ingredients

Serves 8

How it's made

6 steps · 20 min

1
8 min
For the cake, cream 60g butter with 150g sugar, beat in 1 egg, then fold in 250g flour, 1 tbsp baking powder and a pinch of salt alternately with 180ml milk; spread in a buttered 20cm baking dish.
2
5 min
For the sauce, bring 300ml maple syrup, 150ml cream and 50g butter to a boil in a small pot.
3
2 min
Pour the hot sauce gently over the raw cake batter; do not stir.
Watch out
Pour the hot sauce gently over the raw batter and don't stir — stirring destroys the layering that lets cake float above the caramel.
4
12 min
Bake at 180C for 30-35 minutes until the cake is golden and set, with the sauce bubbling around the edges.
Watch out
Bake until the cake top is golden and set and the sauce bubbles around the edges — a caramel puddle should be pooling underneath.
5
3 min
Rest 5 minutes.
6
4 min
Scoop into bowls, cake and sauce together, and serve warm with cream or ice cream.

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Baking Sheet

Flat rectangular metal pan (sheet pan, half-sheet, quarter-sheet), 33×23 cm to 45×33 cm, with a low rim. The flat surface gives even heat for cookies, biscuits, roasted vegetables, sheet-pan dinners. Heavy aluminum sheets conduct heat fastest; non-stick coatings make cleanup easier but can warp over 200°C; rimmed half-sheet is the modern American restaurant standard.

Techniques

Baking