How to Cook Maja Blanca (Coconut Pudding)

Author Notes

Historically known as the significant pearl produce, the Philippines were given a fitting romantic name – Perla del Mar de Oriente (Pearl of the Orient Seas) by Spanish Jesuit Missionary Fr. Juan J. Delgado in 1751. Though the Philippine cuisine assimilated food traditions of neighbouring Asian nations, it is apparently the product of the local unique geography, terrain, climate, flora and fauna. Consisting of more than 7,100 islands, the Philippines is well known for its vast high and lowlands, tropical climate, rich coastal waters, frequent typhoons, tsunamis and earthquakes. Rice, fish, poultry, fresh vegetables, tropical fruits, coconuts, goat or carabao buffalo milk are the food staples of Filipinos. Being the basic staple, rice was given its own Filipino name, kanin. It is a common recipe ingredient from starter courses to various rice cakes and other sweetmeats called kakanin. Filipinos like to have two to three additional meals a day besides the three main ones, with desserts used as snacks. Apart from kakanin, Filipino cookery proposes a variety of non-rice sweet desserts with maja blanca being one of them. Made primarily from coconut milk it’s also known as coconut pudding. The name of the traditional holiday dessert is actually of Spanish origin. Initially pronounced as manjar blanco it means “white delicacy”. This sweet coconut pudding is a wonderful treat and is usually served during fiestas and holidays, especially Christmas. There are many variations of the recipe because maja blanca can easily be modified with different ingredients. For example squash maja blanca contains calabazas (West Indian pumpkin), whereas maja mais includes sweet corn cream style giving it a pretty yellow colour. There’s also maja ube using ube (purple yam) as a distinct ingredient which gives it a vivid purple-to-bright lavender colour. Our flavourful sweet recipe contains evaporated milk which is typically used in the original maja preparations.
The recipe can be found here - http://www.mynutricounter.com/maja-blanca/

—Nikki Brown