Poor Man's Pudding

According to Wikipedia, Pouding chômeur is a traditional Québécois dessert.  It started back during the depression using ingredients that were affordable at the time; hence the name "Poor Man's Pudding".  So I figured, since I had successfully produced a traditional Quebec meal at Christmas time (my tourtière), I figured that for Easter I would attempt another Quebec recipe and make this tasty sounding, and easy dessert.  And since spring is also "le temp de sucre", this dessert goes well with the sugar season!  I adapted my recipe from the one found at Canadianliving.com.

Pouding Chômeur 

Ingredients:

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup skim milk

1 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 cups hot water

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp cornstarch

Directions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 350F.

2. Combine, with a wooden spoon, the first 6 ingredients in a deep casserole dish (such as Corningware French White 2 qt casserole) to make the batter.

3.  Whisk together the hot water, maple syrup, brown sugar and cornstarch in a separate bowl and then pour over the batter in the casserole dish.

4.  Bake for 40 mins. until golden in colour and firm to touch.

Best served warm with a dollop of vanilla ice cream (or in our case, maple sugar crunch ice cream!).  Feel free to drizzle with more pure maple syrup over the top.