It’s funny, when I started this project last year, Matt asked me “what are you going to cook for Canada?” And of all the countries, I wasn’t really thinking about our mysterious neighbor to the north. I’ve traveled to Canada previously and while they are most famous for their poutine, that really isn’t my jam. Probably my favorite food memories from that trip were the Montreal-style bagel and some of their delicatessens were fabulous. But between that and gorging myself on French cheeses, none of this really amounted to a dish in honor of this vast country.

But I do love a good maple syrup, which lead me to the decision to make Grandperes, also known as Maple Dumplings. While these are served as a breakfast treat (kind of like a bready donut ball), I elected to make them for dessert earlier this week and served with vanilla bean ice cream. It requires a large amount of maple syrup which creates a bit of a bubbly bath to cook the dumplings in. It was a nice dessert for a lighter meal we had planned, but I think any leftovers we had won’t see another mealtime. Not to say these weren’t good, but probably best eaten just after making. All in all I’m glad I made another dessert as part of this challenge as it was nice to break up a lot of the meat heavy dishes of earlier this month, and which I have planned for the coming weeks.

Here’s the recipe I used: http://globaltableadventure.com/recipe/grandpas-maple-dumplings-grandperes/

Overall Level of Effort: 1

Skill Level: Beginner

Would Make It Again? No

Additional Notes: This dish was just “eh.” If you love maple syrup, which I do, it’s something new to try. But it won’t be going into our rotation.