Who says that we can only be in one place at a time? Feeling the need to find a comfort zone in a foreign country, student Ilaria Corti, from Italy, talks about origins and traditions with other international students. All of this over a nice meal from their home country. This time, she 'visits' Canada with her friend Carolyne.

What do you think about if I say ‘maple syrup’? You are right, pancakes of course, and what else? Oh oui, Canada. I dared using some French because as you will know there is quite a large community of francophones in Eastern Canada, especially in the Quebec province and surroundings. Carolyne, my Canadian friend, is from Ottawa, a predominantly English-speaking city. Her mother is an English speaker, but her father is francophone, and she grew up with French.

Canada is the second biggest state in the world, and to get from Ottawa to the west coast, it takes the same time by plane as to come to the Netherlands. Carolyne’s other choice her Erasmus was to go to Vancouver. So never ask a Canadian if they know about your friend living in some other city, because it’s like traveling from one state to another in Europe.

Where she lives, her parents keep a big garden with a Maple tree and they make some syrup from it every year. It’s no secret that Maple is taken seriously in Canada. You can find many types of desserts made with it, including the one I am going to write about.

I made this cake with Carolyne during a warm, sunny afternoon and it was a beautiful combination with our mood of the moment. Let’s start a bit back in time with the origins of this delicious pouding chômeur. As many of the most popular dishes all over the world, it came into existence as the result of a shared misfortune. Literally, the translation from French would be ‘pudding of the unemployed’, and it dates to the economic crisis of 1929. It is a typical French-Canadian dessert and apparently the recipe was invented in Montreal during the economic crisis, when a lot of people lost their job. It became popular because it was not expensive to make. Today the dessert is still made from affordable ingredients such as heavy cream, maple syrup and eggs. The measures are of course in cups, as tradition wants, but you can easily find the conversion on the internet.

[kader-xl]Pouding chômeur:

 

¼ cup butter
½ cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup flour
½ tablespoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt
½ cup milk
1/3 cup Canadian maple syrup
1/3 cup cream
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter

 

For the batter: mix together the butter, sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth. In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the milk and the flour mixture into the butter mixture and mix until smooth. Pour the result in a greased pan.

 

For the syrup: Put the maple syrup, cream, brown sugar and butter in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low for 2 minutes. Pour the syrup over the batter in the pan. Put the pan in the oven at 165 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes or until cake is baked. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or with cold milk.
[/kader-xl]

 

Hope you will enjoy it!

Read Ilaria Corti's blogs here