Pudding Chomeur Recipe | Sweet Dumplings in Maple Cream (2024)

What Is Pudding Chomeur?

In all the years I took French in high school, I never learned the word chomeur. I learned words for window and bird and cow and school. Verbs to be, to do, to go. I learned places to work: Usine. Boulangerie. Bibliothèque. Hôpital. But never the word chomeur.

So when I chose to make pudding chomeur after seeing a recipe for it on Food 52, I just thought it was some fancy Canadian dessert.

And then I looked it up. And chomeur means unemployed.

Friends, pudding chomeur is the Dessert of the Unemployed. Poor man’s pudding.

Where Did It Come From?

During the Great Depression, some women who used to be factory workers came up with this dessert so they could still provide their families with sweet endings.

It’s made from a bunch of stuff that most Canadians of the day could get hold of for next to nothing.

• eggs
• butter
• cream
• maple syrup

As an American in the South, this sounds like a pretty expensive list of ingredients to me, but if everyone had a chicken or three and a cow–or a neighbor had one–all that was left was the maple syrup. Which comes from Canada. Which is covered with sugar maples. So, you see: Cheap!

There’s Comfort in Nostalgic, Inexpensive Desserts

A few years ago, I heard Nick Cannon doing stand up on Comedy Central.

He was talking about how he doesn’t understand fancy desserts. When he was growing up, dessert was some Wonder bread with butter, sugar and cinnamon on it.

I get that. I ate plenty of cinnamon toast, too. And bread, butter, and sugar sandwiches. They’re cheap, and they hit the spot.

That’s pudding chomeur.

It’s cheap to make (if you’re Canadian and own chickens and cows and maple trees), and it hits the spot.

The recipe from the Food52 Cookbook appears to be fairly standard. Some of the recipes I found used brown sugar, water and butter for the syrup, but just as many used the maple syrup/heavy cream combination.

And really, when given the choice, isn’t that what you’d do? Even if it is a bit more expensive?

Other Ways to Make It

Before I made this pudding, I thought about plumping up and mincing some dried apples to add to the batter, and I think that would be really good, as would chopped, toasted nuts.

I ended up not adding either, but know you could add both some nuts and chopped apple to the “dumpling” dough if you wanted.

I did incorporate brown sugar and cinnamon into the batter, and because even though I don’t love brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts, I love that flavor combination (see my brown sugar cinnamon pound cake if you’re a fan of the same combo).

And of course I added salt. In the batter and the sauce, because otherwise, I think my teeth would’ve fallen out as I ate.

What’s In It?

As I said, it’s “poor man’s pudding,” and as such, it is made pretty much with basic staples most French Canadians have on hand.

• butter
• brown sugar
• salt
• cinnamon
• eggs
• all purpose flour
• baking powder
• maple syrup (2 cups)
• heavy cream

What If I Can’t Find All Purpose Flour

If you’re out of all purpose flour, you can use self-rising flour instead.

Replace the all purpose flour with an equal amount of self rising flour, and then leave out the salt and baking powder called for in the “dumplings.”

That’s a Lot of Maple Syrup!

Yes, it is.

If you happen to have real maple syrup on hand, I can’t think of a better way to use it.

But if you don’t, you can also make a syrup using brown sugar and water (1 part sugar to 1 part water) mixed with an equal amount of heavy cream.

I’d go with 1 cup of brown sugar and water along with 1 cup of heavy cream.

It won’t taste quite the same, but it will still be an indulgent treat!

Instructions

This is a Very Easy dish to make. And eat.

You can make the batter the day before baking if you want and just put it in the fridge.

The next day, boil the cream, syrup and salt together, pour it over you dough, and bake.

I served it with just a touch of unsweetened cream. Not even whipped. Just straight.

What Does It Taste Like?

Pudding chomeur is a bit similar to sticky toffee pudding in that it is, well, sticky. And sweet. And delicious.

I didn’t really know what to expect when I started out with balls of stodgy cookie dough in hot syrup, but the dough baked up into rich, buttery, cinnamon dumplings floating in rich mapley goodness.

Very, Very yum.

Note that it is very sweet, so it’s a great dessert to serve a crowd–nobody needs to eat a ton of this at one sitting.

It’s also very rich with a nice contrast of light dumplings and luscious sauce.

If you’ve never had pudding chomeur before, I think you’ll be a fan just like me.

It will help me and other readers so much if you take a moment to rate and leave a review for this recipe.

See Also

Traditional Irish Brown Bread Recipe

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And there you have it: poor man’s pudding. So very delicious!

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Enjoy this rather indulgent treat, and have a lovely day.