October 28, 2020

Hurry Up Rhubarb Pudding

This dish, from Wartime Recipes from the Maritimes, was a last minute weeknight effort to use up some of the rhubarb in our garden (which was suffering a bit from the frost).

This is a chômeur pudding, where a hot, sweet liquid is poured over the batter just prior to going in the oven, and the dish ends up with a cake-like part on top and a sweet sauce on the bottom of the pan.

As far as I can tell, this dish is suitable to make under rationing partly because there is no fat in it (except for the greasing of the dish). Fat was used in the making of explosives during the war, and was both rationed (butter) and collected by citizens (as drippings).

(By the way, there is no explanation for the name of this dish in the book – one imagines that it’s a quick dessert for a hungry crowd!)

Ingredients

1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp salt
2/3 cups milk
2 cups chopped rhubarb
2/3 cups brown sugar
3/4 cup boiling water

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375F. Grease a baking dish. 

Mix flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a bowl. Add milk and beat until smooth. 

Make a layer of rhubarb in the bottom of the dish. Spread batter over the top of the rhubarb. 

Dissolve brown sugar in the boiling water, then pore it over the batter in the baking dish. 

Bake for 30 minutes.