Pouding Chômeur

In a single dish, the batter rises upward while the sweet liquid stays at the bottom. Quebec’s pouding chômeur is a dessert in which the baked part and the part that has soaked up the sauce are scooped up together. “Chômeur” means an unemployed person. It is described as the ingenuity of women during the Great Depression, but today it is made in a variety of formulations using brown sugar, maple syrup, heavy cream and more.

Preparing the batter and the sauce separately

The cake batter uses flour, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, baking powder and so on. Soft butter and sugar are creamed together, the eggs are added, and then the dry ingredients and milk are combined. Once the flour is in, the batter is not overmixed; mixing stops when it comes together smoothly.

The sauce is prepared separately. Some versions mainly use cassonade, a brown sugar, and water; others add cream, and others use maple syrup. Rather than working the sauce evenly into the batter, the batter and sauce are layered in the baking dish—this is the defining feature of this dessert.

Dropping the batter onto the sauce and baking

In one brown sugar formulation, cassonade, water and cream are mixed in a deep pan, and the batter is placed on top a little at a time with a spoon. As it bakes, the batter rises and joins together, forming a layer of cake on top and a layer of sweet sauce below.

When maple syrup and cream are used, the sauce is brought to a boil once in a saucepan and poured into a deep ovenproof dish before the batter is dropped in. Formulations using a generous amount of 35% cream give a rich result, with the richness of milk fat added to the aroma of maple.

Putting the batter in first and pouring the sauce over

There is also a method that reverses the order: the batter is spread in the pan and the sauce is poured over it. In a recipe (recette: the ingredient proportions and method) that uses no cream in the sauce, maple syrup and water are simmered until slightly thickened, then taken off the heat and butter is melted in. The sauce is gently poured, over the back of a spoon, onto the cake batter that was spread out first.

Maple, water and butter alone can make a sauce that coats the cake. The syrup poured on top flows around and under the batter during baking, leaving baked batter on the surface. Whatever the order, the common approach is to serve the baked cake together with the sauce from the bottom of the dish.

In a formulation presented by Quebec’s maple producers’ association, maple sugar is also used to sweeten the batter, and a sauce of maple syrup, cream and butter simmered together is poured over the top. It is one example in which maple sweetness goes into both the batter and the sauce.

There is also a method in which a hot sauce of maple, brown sugar and water is poured over a batter made with whole eggs plus extra yolks. This formulation, handed down in the kitchen of Rideau Hall, the residence of the Governor General, combines two sweeteners and adds more yolks to give richness to the batter as well.

Flavors that change with the sweetener and with sour cream

Changing the sweetener also changes the aroma of the sauce. Cassonade gives the flavor of a brown sugar containing molasses, while maple syrup gives the aroma of boiled-down sap. Rather than syrup simply being poured over after baking, the batter and syrup are in contact from the start of baking, and the parts closer to the bottom become moister.

There is also a method in which sour cream and cassonade are mixed, poured over the batter and baked. In a recipe handed down under the name of Jehane Benoît, corn syrup is used to sweeten the batter, which is paired with a sauce that has the tang of dairy. Under the same name, households differ not only in the type of sweetener but also in how they use dairy products.

Baking the batter while leaving sauce at the bottom

Because the sauce bubbles during baking, a reasonably deep dish is used, with a baking sheet placed underneath if needed. A skewer is inserted into the batter at the center, and baking continues until no raw batter clings to it. Rather than drying out the syrup at the bottom, a flowing sauce is left.

After baking, it is left to rest briefly and scooped out once the bubbling of the hot sauce has subsided. The brown sugar recipe calls for a 15-minute rest, and the museum recipe for a 5-minute rest. Besides being eaten warm, it may also be eaten cooled, and it can be served with ice cream or extra cream.

Women’s ingenuity in the Great Depression and the legend of the mayor’s wife

The name “unemployed person” ties it to life during the Great Depression, when more and more households lost their work. Set against the backdrop of 1929, it has been handed down as an example of women’s ingenuity in making a simple dessert from flour, fat, milk and brown sugar. Neither the person who first baked this dessert nor the date is established.

According to another legend, Georgianna Falardeau, wife of Montreal mayor Camillien Houde, devised it with inexpensive ingredients so that families could cheer up workers who had lost their jobs. Regional historian Jean-Marc Agator, while presenting this story, raises the question of whether, rather than treating it as one person’s invention, the ingenuity of workers’ wives should also be considered.

A sweet ending at the spring sugar shack

From simple versions made by dissolving brown sugar in water to those using maple syrup and heavy cream, it is still made today with a variety of ingredients. At the spring sugar shack, the cabane à sucre, it also appears as the sweet that follows bean dishes, ham and meat pie. This dish, in which the syrup at the bottom is scooped up with the cake, has been passed down both at the family table and at seasonal gatherings.

Glossary