Share it Sunday : Pouding Chômeur (dairy-free)

Today, I thought I’d share a dairy-free version of a traditional french-Canadian dessert: the pouding chômeur (or poor man’s pudding cake).

I love this one because it brings back childhood memories.  You see, this dessert is one of the desserts that my mom made when I was younger.  You can bet that when she made it, it never lasted very long despite the fact that she’d make a double batch.

Translated literally, “pouding chômeur” means pudding for the unemployed.  As the name implies, it is very inexpensive to make.  Besides the fact that it doesn’t require any special or expensive ingredients, it is tasty and very easy to make (a child could likely carry out the majority of the steps alone).

Are you curious to know how to make it?

Pouding Chômeur (serves 6)

Ingredients

For the cake

375 ml (1 1/2 cup):  all purpose flour
180 ml (3/4 cup):     dark brown sugar
15 ml (1 tbsp.):        baking powder
2.5 ml (1/2 tsp.):      salt
45 ml (3 tbsp):         coconut oil, melted
180 ml (3/4 cup):     coconut milk
5 ml (1 tsp.):            vanilla extract

For the sauce

125 ml (1/2 cup):    dark brown sugar
500 ml (2 cups):     boiling water

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In a bowl, combine dry ingredients.
3. In the same bowl, add wet ingredients.  Mix until you obtain a ball of dough.
4. Place the dough in an oven-safe pan, making sure to spread it to cover the bottom of the pan.
5. Spread the dark brown sugar (for the sauce) over the ball of dough.  Carefully pour boiling water on top.
6. Bake for 40 minutes, or until the center is cooked through.

I should probably warn you.  This dessert doesn’t look like much.  In fact, when you pour the boiling water over the whole thing before putting it in the oven, you’re probably going to wonder how in the world it can yield something edible, let alone tasty.  But trust me, it works.

Enjoy!

Oh, and for those of you who would like a printable pdf, just click on the text link beside the thumbnail of the recipe.

 

 

 

Dairy-free Pouding Chômeur (PDF)

 

 

 

Anyone else up to sharing a traditional and/or childhood meal?

Vote For Me! Please?

Ok, full disclosure:  I’m going to be doing some shameless self-promotion.

About a month ago I saw an interesting post appear in my reader.  Pat, from The Ranting Chef, was looking for entrants for a dessert competition.  His goal: to pit 16 different dessert types against one another to find a favourite among his readers.  I love to bake and I love dessert so I thought to myself: “self, you should give it a go!” and so I did.

I was both surprised and thrilled when I received word from Pat that I was in.  I mean, I don’t have a cooking blog and there were only 16 spots available.  He assigned me the chocolate cake category.

Now, this is where you come in.  I made my cake and it is now time to vote.  Yesterday, my competitor’s Jell-O dessert, the Strawberry Jell-O Shot Cake was presented and today my Oreo Cake has the spotlight.  There is a voting period that is open until next Wednesday (April 2nd).  Every vote counts, so if you think my dessert looks good, please go vote for it.  Of course, if you think the other one looks better you can vote for that one instead, no hard feelings ;).  If my dessert wins, I go through to a second round and will be pitted against another type of dessert.

So who wants a slice?

 

Ten Thought Tuesday: Septembre 24th edition

1. The baby nasal aspirator I bought yesterday claims that it is “efficient, quick, fun and hygienic”.  I’m not sure I agree with the “fun” part (nor does my son, for that matter) or with the “quick” part, for that matter.
2. We went to Little Dude’s first swimming lesson on Sunday.  He was so funny because he hardly interacted at all, he was just observing everything.
3. I’ve just come back from buying a Fall/Spring coat for Charles.  Right now, it goes down to his knees.  I’m hoping it’ll be still big enough for him when Spring comes ’round.
4. I really need to try this recipe one of these days.  Believe it or not, it’s a main course.  Of course, I’d follow it up with this, which is – you guessed it! – a dessert!
5. I brought Little Dude to the dentist with me the other day.  He was fascinated with all of the sights and sounds and gladly let the dentist put a gloved finger in his mouth once I was finished.
6. Speaking of dentists and teeth, his last two incisors cut a couple of days ago.
7. I’m finding it really hard to keep up with all of the posts of the blogs I follow.  I try to read them all, but I just don’t have the time to comment on all of them 😦
8. I’m starting to get the hand of Splinter Cell: Blacklist.
9. Looking forward to my next opportunity to participate in a Bzzz campaign.  I didn’t respond quickly enough last time one was sent out.
10. I can’t believe how time flies.  September is almost over, Charles is now 10 months old and we’re (finally!) nearing the appointment with the allergist.

Stuffed Bite-Sized Choux Pastries (Non-Dairy)

In trying to keep up with my sweet tooth despite taking dairy out of my diet for my son’s sake, I’ve been experimenting with some classic recipes and using alternatives to the typical dairy products used to complete them.

Today, I tackled choux pastries and decided to make a couple of fillings to stuff them with.  Yum!

Bite-Sized Choux Pastries

Ingredients (yields approx. 35 mini choux pastries)

• 75mL (1/4 cup) almond milk (or any other dairy alternative)
• 75mL (1/4 cup) water
• 30mL (2 tbsp) coconut oil
• 2.5mL (1/2 tsp) sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 125mL (1/2 cup) flour
• 2 medium sized eggs

How to make

1. Place grill in center of oven and preheat to 190 C (375 F).  Place a silicone mat (or parchment paper) on a cookie pan.

2. In a small saucepan, bring almond milk, water, coconut oil, sugar and salt to a boil.  Remove pot from the heat and add the flour.  Mix vigorously with a wooden spoon until the mix forms a ball that detaches from the sides of the saucepan.

3. Set the pot back onto the heat source and, on low heat, continue to cook the dough for a minute or two.

4. Remove the saucepan from the heat source and let the dough cool down for a few minutes.  Add the eggs, one by one, and beat with an electric beater (or, if you’re feeling brave, beat vigorously with a wooden spoon) until you obtain a sticky, homogenous paste.

5.  Spoon the paste in a piping bag (or in a ziploc bag with an end cut off) and pipe onto your baking sheet, making sure to leave about an inch between each puff.  Note that the puffs will approximately double in size once cooked.

6.  Stick in the oven for 35 minutes or until they’ve reached a light golden color.  Turn off oven and leave them in the oven with the door slightly ajar for another 10 minutes.

7.  Admire your masterpiece.  (BTW, at this point, these suckers can be frozen for up to a month).

Fresh out of the oven.

A closer look.

Now, you could stuff these suckers with pretty much anything as they have quite a neutral taste.  However, I decided to stuff mine with some sweetness!  So I’ll give you the recipe for the two fillings that I made.

Dairy-Free Carob Custard

Ingredients (yields about 1/2 cup)

• 1 cup rice milk (or another non-dairy equivalent)
• 1 tbsp corn starch
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten (or 2 lightly beaten egg yolks)
• 1 tbsp carob powder
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

How to make

1. Have eggs ready in a bowl, and set aside where it will be within reach.

2. In a small saucepan, over medium heat, whisk together rice milk, sugar and cornstarch.  Bring to a boil, whisking occasionally to prevent corn startch from clumping.

3. Remove from heat.  Use about 2 tablespoons of the hot mixture and whisk into eggs.  Slowly whisk egg mixture into saucepan.

4. Return pot to heat and whisk gently until custard thickens or about 2-3 minutes.  Do not allow to boil.

5. Remove saucepan from heat and add vanilla and carob powder, mixing well.

6. Pipe custard into puffs.  (Note: it is rather runny so it’s better to pipe from the top so that it actually stays in).

Sweet Pecan Butter

Ingerdients

• 2 cups pecans
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 2 tbsp melted coconut oil
• 2 tbsp unsweetened grated coconut
• 2 tbsp agave nectar
• 2 tbsp ground chia seeds
• 1 tbsp almond oil

How to make

1. Put all ingredients in a food processor and process to death (ie: until you obtain something close to a homogenous paste).

2. Pipe into puffs.

Of course, all you have to do after is set the stuffed choux pastries on the table and try not to eat them all before you take a picture.

ENJOY!

Related articles

• Pate a Choux Recipe (Cream Puff Pastry) (sweetmelangeblog.wordpress.com)
• It’s choux time: Move over, cupcakes – éclairs are having a makeover (independent.co.uk)

Key Lime Cheesecake – Sans Fromage!

You know how it’s always when you can’t have something that you want it the most?

You see, I’ve been craving cheesecake recently.  I mean, really craaaaaaaaving.  Of course, I can’t have any because I have taken dairy out of my diet for my son.

Or can I?

I remembered how I’d gone to a vegan restaurant with my little sis a couple of years back and they had cheesecake on the menu.  Of course, it wasn’t real cheesecake but it was real good!

I can’t say I rock enough to have invented the recipe, but with the help of a few key words in Google, and a hop on Pinterest I found two recipes that looked good and merged them.  I took the recipe for the crust here and used the one for the filling that I found here.

Would you like to know what’s in it and how to make it?

Of course you do!

What’s in it?

For the crust (left)

• 8 medjool dates, soaked and pits removed (I let them soak as I measured out the other ingredients)
• 1 cup of mixed nuts (mine contained brazil nuts, pecans, almonds and cashews)
• 1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

1 tsp cinamon

For the filling (right)

• 3 cups raw macadamia nuts
• 1 cup almond milk
• 1 cup key lime juice
• 3/4 cup raw agave nectar
• 3/4 cup coconut oil (unbleached and unrefined)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Now, for some reason, I did the filling first (must be mommy brain) which meant that I had to pour the filling in a bowl as  I mixed the ingredients for the crust.  Don’t be silly like me, make your crust first.

What to do?

Crust

1. Mix everything but the dates until the mixture is reduced to a coarse meal.
2. Add the dates and keep blending until well blended and sticky.
3. Press the mixture in a pie mold.

Filling

1. Put all ingredients in food processor (if you’re smart, unlike me, you’ll make sure the food doesn’t go past the max food level).
2. Pulverize until the mix has a smooth texture.
3. Pour the filling into the crust.
4. Place in the freezer for 2h.
5. Eat

4. Key Lime Cheesecake Sans Fromage

And, just because I had time and my son was being quiet, I actually pressed my key limes.  If you don’t have a lot of time on your hands, I would suggest you just buy some ready pressed, because it took 2lbs of them to get a cup of freshly pressed lime juice!  (But it was TOTALLY worth it because I absolutely LOVE key lime).

1 lb down, 1 to go

Finally!