OT: Help from my Canadian friends! Dessert ideas...

[pickandgrin]

Canadians!
My daughter needs your help. She's looking for Christmas-season Canadian dessert/treat ideas. This is for the Christmas celebration in her lit class for cottage school, reading Anne, of course! She loves to bake and is excited about the prospect of a new speciality. I'd much rather inquire with friends than the entire universe on the internet.

Thank you in advance for any tips!

[GeorgiaMom]

Re: OT: Help from my Canadian friends! Dessert ideas...

Not Canadian, but a good friend is, and she once made me Nanaimo bars. They're no-bake, I think, but man, they were GOOD!

[Aquila]

Re: OT: Help from my Canadian friends! Dessert ideas...

Nothing brings people together like dessert! My first thought was 'Tarte au sucre'. This is a typical Quebec dish, sometimes made with maple syrup as opposed to sugar. On New Years Eve families get together and eat two meals, one at a normal hour and another at midnight. I think they actually just eat all night, from what I remember. But the 'Tarte' is served on Christmas and New Years. A typical dish that Anne would have eaten would probably have involved a berry of sort, like a blueberry crumble or a blueberry grunt, as they wouldn't have had access to a lot of exotic ingredients. If you asked my dad he would probably say a traditional east coast desert would be a 'Fluffernutter"! Ha! Another popular one is Nanaimo Bars, or really any sort of similar recipe that is cut into squares - mint brownies, date squares, marshmallow squares. Oh there is not a Christmas party I go to, that doesn't have a square of sort. I have heard that Red Velvet cake is also Canadian, but I have never been anywhere that serves it. I like to make hand stretched strudel, rolled with either apples, or sour cherries, or a lemon mix. Can't find it anywhere in the stores and it is a real treat. We also still like our apple pie. But I digress.....

[Aquila]

Re: OT: Help from my Canadian friends! Dessert ideas...

And butter tarts....I forgot about the butter tarts.

[pickandgrin]

Re: OT: Help from my Canadian friends! Dessert ideas...

This is wonderful, thank you!

[Girlnumber20]

Re: OT: Help from my Canadian friends! Dessert ideas...

The only thing I can think of is poutine. But that is not a dessert. And I have not been able to figure out why we eat french fries drenched in gravy and cheese curds and then call it "poutine." Aquila's your gal.

[Anita]

Re: OT: Help from my Canadian friends! Dessert ideas...

Nothing brings people together like dessert! My first thought was 'Tarte au sucre'. This is a typical Quebec dish, sometimes made with maple syrup as opposed to sugar. On New Years Eve families get together and eat two meals, one at a normal hour and another at midnight. I think they actually just eat all night, from what I remember. But the 'Tarte' is served on Christmas and New Years. A typical dish that Anne would have eaten would probably have involved a berry of sort, like a blueberry crumble or a blueberry grunt, as they wouldn't have had access to a lot of exotic ingredients. If you asked my dad he would probably say a traditional east coast desert would be a 'Fluffernutter"! Ha! Another popular one is Nanaimo Bars, or really any sort of similar recipe that is cut into squares - mint brownies, date squares, marshmallow squares. Oh there is not a Christmas party I go to, that doesn't have a square of sort. I have heard that Red Velvet cake is also Canadian, but I have never been anywhere that serves it. I like to make hand stretched strudel, rolled with either apples, or sour cherries, or a lemon mix. Can't find it anywhere in the stores and it is a real treat. We also still like our apple pie. But I digress.....

Ah doo hate ta disahgree with my Noh-than sistas, but I do believe the South lays claim to the creation and propagation of the venerable Red Velvet Cake. So that might be why you have not encountered it. (Bless your sweet, little ol’ heart.)

The Yule Log or Buche de Noël is a Québécois dessert that will knock ‘em dead (though it is hard to make).

Funny, I thought “Canadian dessert” was whatever was freshest at Tim Horton’s

[Girlnumber20]

Re: OT: Help from my Canadian friends! Dessert ideas...

Ah doo hate ta disahgree with my Noh-than sistas, but I do believe the South lays claim to the creation and propagation of the venerable Red Velvet Cake. So that might be why you have not encountered it. (Bless your sweet, little ol’ heart.)

The Yule Log or Buche de Noël is a Québécois dessert that will knock ‘em dead (though it is hard to make).

Funny, I thought “Canadian dessert” was whatever was freshest at Tim Horton’s

Tim Horton's makes a killer Red Velvet Muffin. Is that creepy?

[Anita]

Re: OT: Help from my Canadian friends! Dessert ideas...

Tim Horton's makes a killer Red Velvet Muffin. Is that creepy?

Hahahaha

I actually did some research about red velvet cake...

Wikipedia:
“In Canada, the cake was a well-known dessert in the restaurants and bakeries of the Eaton's department store chain in the 1940s and 1950s. Promoted as an exclusive Eaton's recipe, with employees who knew the recipe sworn to silence, many mistakenly believed the cake was the invention of the department store matriarch, Lady Eaton.”

Now it all makes sense.

[Aquila]

Re: OT: Help from my Canadian friends! Dessert ideas...

Sooo I asked around. My daughters instructor is from Newfoundland (close to PEI) and I asked her what a quintessential Christmas dessert was and she said Blueberry Pudding. And I think in PEI it would be plum pudding and now that I think of it my dad enjoys puddings. So if you were looking for something more East Coast Christmas-like then a pudding would be an option. There is also some really good East Coast fiddle music, like the Rankin Family. I know this is information overload. In any case, maybe the Red Velvet Cake went away with Eatons.

[pickandgrin]

Re: OT: Help from my Canadian friends! Dessert ideas...

Aquila! This is fabulous. I'm sure she's going to want to make a buffet of all these choices!