Vegan Pouding Chômeur/Poor Man’s Pudding
If there’s one recipe you need to make at least once in your lifetime, it’s this vegan pouding chômeur/poor man’s pudding. A traditional québécois dessert dating back to the Great Depression era due to its cheap and mostly readily available ingredients. It’s basically a plain ol’ cake soaked in caramel or maple syrup. What’s not to like?
The cake is moist and you get a delectable pool of syrup at the bottom that will convince you to just devour all of them. Especially if you eat them while they’re still warm or at least reheated and topped with maple syrup. Which is the only way you should be eating pouding chômeur honestly, vegan or not. It truly is a drool-worthy dessert.
A not-so-traditional pouding chômeur
Now, since this is a vegan poor man’s pudding, some would say it’s no longer a traditional one. But I would strongly disagree because it tastes exactly like the real deal! The fluffy yet caramel-soaked cake is exactly the right texture and the warm syrup is almost butterscotch-like.
The cake is different from its non-vegan version because a normal vegan vanilla cake wouldn’t be able to soak up the syrup. It would also have a hard time baking through because of all the moisture present.
So this batter will seem very stiff since it’s low on liquids. That’s normal. But it yields the perfect result in the end. The yogurt adds liquid, fat, and the acid to react with the baking soda to give the cake its lift. Still, be careful not to overmix to avoid it being tough.
As for the sauce, it’s very simple to make and is what makes this regular cake a pouding chômeur. It’s as easy as combining the ingredients in a saucepan and bringing them to a boil. That’s it.
Some make it with maple syrup, but since this is more of a budget dessert (chômeur literally means unemployed person), I opted for brown sugar, which is often used as well. Although I still enjoy topping it with a bit of maple syrup, because I just love cavities. And if you’re as sugar-obsessed as I am, you’ll probably also like these vegan blondies.
If you make this recipe please let me know in the comments! All feedback is very much appreciated and I would love to hear from you! You can also tag me on instagram @the.quaint.kitchen or use the hashtag #thequaintkitchen to share your creations!
Vegan Pouding Chômeur/Poor Man’s Pudding
Ingredients
Cake
- 110 g all-purpose flour
- 70 g white granulated sugar, make sure it’s vegan
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 50 g neutral oil
- 75 g plain vegan yogurt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Sauce
- 100 g brown sugar, I used dark but any brown sugar will do
- 125 g water
- 50 g plant based milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 200°C/400°F, grease 4 ramekins and place them on a baking tray.
Sauce
- Combine the sugar, water, milk, vanilla and salt in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Once it has boiled, turn off the heat and move on to making the cake batter.
Cake
- Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.
- Add the oil, yogurt and vanilla and stir with a spatula until even without overmixing. The batter will be very stiff, that’s normal.
Assembly
- Divide the batter evenly into the ramekins (about 70g per ramekin). It will look like not enough but it will expand quite a bit.
- Pour the sauce into each ramekin leaving a little space at the top. About 1cm/¼-inch. You will have some leftover sauce, that’s for when they’re done baking.
- Place the tray with the ramekins on it in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean or with just a few crumbs on it, not raw batter.
- Once you take them out of the oven, pour the rest of the sauce on them while they’re still very hot.
- Let them cool on the tray for 15 minutes before enjoying!
Notes
- *Disclaimer: I have a tiny not-so-great oven, so your bake time may vary from mine.
- I strongly suggest making recipes by weight, if you make them by cups I can’t guarantee that you’ll get the same results.
- These are best enjoyed freshly baked and still warm, but if you have leftovers, they will keep at room temperature for a day, then store them covered in the fridge. Place 25-30 seconds in the microwave before eating.
- You can top these with maple syrup if you’ve really got a sweet tooth like I do.
Amazing! Delicious! Easy!! Thank you for this! My husband and I went plant based a couple of years ago and genus from Quebec so this was a real treat for him as he hasn’t had this since switching diets. It was delicious and it was gone in 5 mins!! Xox
Love to hear it Nicole thank you!! It’s truly my pleasure! There’s nothing quite like a delicious pouding chômeur, I’m so happy you guys were able to enjoy it again!! It goes just as fast here too 😋
I have not tried the recipe yet as I was wondering if I could do a 8 x 8 pan instead of the individual ramikins, as I do not have those. I wanted to do this for Christmas dessert for non-vegans as I grew up on this dessert. Should I buy the ramikin dishes or can I make this recipe in an 8×8?
I am a novice vegan cook so I really appreciate your assistance.
Hi Julie! Yes I’m sure you can! I would multiply each ingredient (including the sauce) by 1.5 to have enough for the larger pan. I would also adjust the oven temperature to 180C/350F since it’ll take longer to bake, start with 40 minutes and check with a toothpick inserted in the center to see if it’s fully baked. If there’s some raw batter on the toothpick, continue baking until a toothpick inserted comes out clean or with just a few crumbs on it. If it browns too much on the surface before it’s fully baked, loosely cover the top with aluminum and continue baking. Lastly, I would do a test run before the 25th just to make sure it works well, that way you’ll know it’ll go smoothly on Christmas! Wouldn’t want a failed dessert on Christmas day 😅 I hope you like it! I would love to know how it goes if you end up making it!
What specifically do you mean by brown sugar? Do you mean the dry, crystalline stuff, of or moist, sandy kind? I used light soft brown, and it unfortunately split the soya milk (due the the acidity of the molasses in the sugar I suspect).
Hi Ezra, I mean the moist sandy stuff. I’m sorry that happened! I’ve made this recipe with dark brown sugar and light brown sugar (Redpath specifically) and I’ve never had it split. I don’t think I’ve tried it with soy milk, but I’ve used almond and cashew and both worked fine. Soy milk is higher in protein so it splits more easily (that’s why it’s great for making “buttermilk”) so that could maybe be why. But I imagine even if it splits, once it’s poured over the batter and absorbed into the cake during baking it should be fine. How did they come out?
BY far the most delicious pouding au chomeur I ever ate (even beats my grandma’s cake, which is very telling). It’s super juicy and the taste of sugar is well balanced. It’s unfortunately a one sitting-eat so I recommend doing it with other people. LOL.
Haha thank you so much Ariel! It truly is a dangerous no-sharing dessert👀
This is the best poor man’s pudding I ate! I already made it three times and I’m holding back to not making it once a week, it’s easy to make and the result is just heavenly delicious. I’m a sugar monster and this helps my cravings. I recommend!
Haha you’re too nice thank you!! I’m so glad!☺️ I crave it way too much too!