Blue Sailor
Canada has a rather diverse cuisine, composed of foods from the people of many lands who have settled here as well as the foods Indigenous peoples cooked before Europeans arrived on the country’s shores. It would be difficult to describe to you a unified Canadian cuisine, as most of us enjoy eating and cooking foods from every corner of the world.
But in honour of Canada’s upcoming sesquicentennial, I decided to share with you some desserts that originate in my country. Please vote for your favorites – and if I’ve left out a Canadian treat that you really like, let me know in the comments.
#1 Nanaimo Bars
This rich, no-bake dessert is named for a city in British Columbia. The bottom layer is a crumb crust with cocoa, coconuts, and chopped nuts. The filling is a kind of custard. The whole is topped off with melted chocolate.
Nanaimo bars made their first recorded appearance in Canadian cookbooks and newspapers in the early 1950s. Today, they are a classic with numerous variations. We had cappuccino Nanaimo bars at a gathering recently. Delicious!
#2 Tarte au Sucre, Sugar Pie from Quebec
Tarte au sucre is probably the best-known dessert from Quebec. There are a million ways to make it (my absolute favorite is a creamy maple pie with apple slices in it) but the most basic is a filling made from maple syrup.
Most of the world's maple syrup comes from Quebec, which has a long-standing maple industry. If you are lucky enough to visit Quebec when the sap is running near the end of winter, do go sugaring off. A traditional feast in the sugar shack is an unforgettable experience. And there is nothing on earth like fresh-baked sugar pie!
#3 Pouding Chomeur – Poor Man’s Pudding
Pouding chomeur is a Depression-era recipe that was made by female factory workers in Quebec. The traditional recipe uses no eggs and only a little milk, so it was less expensive to make.
Pouding chomeur is a "pudding" in the British sense of the word, and not a custard. It's like a dense cake that bakes in its own caramel-flavored sauce. Very sweet!
#4 Butter Tarts
#5 Indian Ice Cream
There is no ice or cream involved in this Indigenous Canadian treat. In fact, depending how you make it, Indian ice cream isn't really sweet! It is a whipped confection of native soapberries (Shepherdia canadensis) and water. Sometimes sweeter berries or sugar are added to the recipe to make it sweeter. It's definitely an acquired taste!
There wasn't a recipe at the image source, but you can find directions for making Indian ice cream here.
#6 Sucre a la Creme, Sugar Cream Fudge
Another classic from Quebec, this sweet candy is closer to Scottish tablet than it is to what most North Americans know as fudge. There are lots of different ways to make it - with brown sugar, white sugar, maple sugar, or even syrup. It's incredibly sweet and it melts in your mouth when properly made, but it has just a little bit of a granular texture from the sugar crystals.
Warning: once you've tasted sucre a la creme, you won't be able to stop eating it. It's incredibly addictive!
#7 Acadian White Taffy
I'm not sure that anyone actually makes an entire dessert of this sweet stuff, but it is a treat with a rich Canadian past. It's also called la tire Sainte Catherine, and if you go trick or treating in Canada, you're sure to find some of this (or maple or molasses taffy) in your Halloween haul! Some traditions associate this taffy to the time around Shrove Tuesday and the beginning of the Lenten season.
