Pouding Chomeur

I first learned about this sinfully sweet dessert many years ago from my mother-in-law. When I used to visit Marc in Montreal when we were first dating (long distance), his mom Pauline made us lots of wonderful dinners and with dinner there was always something for dessert. Pouding Chomeur, also known as "unemployment pudding" or "floating island" is a traditional Quebecois dessert which is made with cheap ingredients, hence the name "chomeur" which means "unemployed" in french. It bakes up as a vanilla white cake with a sticky brown sugar sauce underneath. I've veganized Pauline's recipe and I am posting it here to share. There are a myriad of chomeur recipes out there with different proportions of ingredients. This particular recipe I find has a higher cake to sauce ratio but I'm assuming you can double the sauce recipe if you prefer. I haven't actually tried that so I don't know what the result will be. You can always make extra sauce on the side and pour on each slice as you serve.

Vegan Pouding Chomeur

Sauce:
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup water
1 TB vegan margarine (I used Earth Balance)

Add all ingredients to a small saucepan and bring to a boil for 1 minute. Set aside.

Cake:
1 TB vegan margarine
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 cup soymilk (or other non dairy milk)

With a hand mixer or stand mixer, cream margarine and sugar together. Add vanilla and soymilk. Mix flour, baking powder together in a separate bowl. Add to the rest of the mixture and mix until combined. Pour batter into a greased medium sized glass baking dish. Pour the sauce that you set aside evenly over the top of the batter. It will be watery, don't worry. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 30 minutes or until top is browned. As it bakes, the cake will rise to the top and the sauce will be underneath.


You can see the sauce underneath the cake.


To serve, cut a slice, place it face down on a plate and scoop some sauce on top!