Recipe for a poor man's pudding; tested

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Q: I am looking for a recipe I had 30 years ago in Quebec. It's for unemployment pudding. It's a very sweet dessert made with flour, sugar and vinegar, and baked. -- Carol Deese, St. Petersburg, Fla.

Cindy Shea shares a recipe for pouding chomeur, which translates to "unemployment pudding" or sometimes "poor man's pudding." This is a dessert of Quebec origin. Cindy found the recipe on www.gallant.qc.ca, the Web site for Auberge des Gallant restaurant and spa. Some ingredients have been modified as the recipe was passed down through generations. Cindy's version does not include vinegar. Originally, it was made with stale bread and syrup, either maple or corn. This is an easy recipe to make and very tasty. It is similar to a pudding-cake recipe with a caramel-type pudding under the cakelike topping. Cindy's submission clearly stated to use a glass baking dish (a metal pan conducts heat differently than glass). Don't over-mix the batter, but be sure to incorporate all the flour before putting the dough in the pan.

UNEMPLOYMENT PUDDING

1 cup pure maple syrup

3/4 cup heavy cream

Pinch of salt

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1/3 cup sugar

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup cake flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Put oven rack in top third of oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir together maple syrup, heavy cream and pinch of salt in small saucepan and bring to a boil, then remove from heat.

Beat together butter and sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add egg and vanilla and beat until just combined. Sift flour, baking powder and salt into egg mixture and stir with a rubber spatula until just combined. Batter will be thick.

Pour 1/3 of syrup mixture into bottom of 8- by 8-inch glass baking dish. Divide batter in mixing bowl into six mounds with rubber spatula and spoon each mound onto syrup mixture in baking dish, spreading mounds evenly. Pour remaining syrup over mixture and around mounds.

Bake until topping is golden and firm to the touch, about 25 to 30 minutes. Serve warm.

-- Cindy Shea, Spring Hill, Fla.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service www.scrippsnews.com)

Must credit St. Petersburg Times