Berry Picker Pudding Cake
- Annemarie Bolduc
- Feb 22, 2021
- 2 min read
Updated: Jan 23
Inspired by the French Canadian traditional “Pouding Chômeur”, made with frozen berries.
“Pouding” means pudding, and “chômeur” means unemployed worker. “Pouding chômeur” is a Québec traditional dessert created during the Great Depression and was initially made with affordable ingredients like flour, butter, milk and brown sugar. This pudding cake is a sweet, syrupy sauce topped with moist cake dough. This dessert is one of the best dishes served in sugar shacks (made with freshly produced maple syrup). This recipe has many variants, such as substituting brown sugar with maple syrup, honey or even chocolate. I did not invent the fruit version, but developed my “berry picker” version as a poor freelancer with many berries! I use a mix of frozen wild blackberries and raspberries grown at my husband’s family farm. We get plenty of them every season, but as they are highly perishable, we freeze some to enjoy them all year long in smoothies and desserts like this one. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but I’ve got to admit, this has become my favourite dessert for the taste and also because it is so easy to make. The pudding cake is commonly served with ice cream, but a scoop of plain Greek yogurt is also great.
RECIPE
This recipe was published in ABC Organic Gardener Magazine issue #142 Winter 2023.
A new version was adapted and available in my cookbook Québec Kitchen Abroad.
