Malva Pudding - A Traditional South African Dessert Recipe With Amarula (2024)

FAQs

What is the national dessert of South Africa? ›

It's a real traditional South African oldie. It's comfort food personified, as good as a hug from Mom herself (well, almost). Malva pudding is a sweet pudding of Cape Dutch origin.

Now you can enjoy the decadent taste of a traditional malva pudding any time in a co*cktail or simply poured over ice.

After much research, the consensus seems to be that the "malva" in malva pudding comes from Malvasia dessert wine, which may or may not have been used in a sauce for this moist South African pudding.

No discussion of South African desserts would be complete without Malva Pudding! This moist and spongy baked pudding always includes apricot jam and is usually served warm with a cold custard sauce. This homey, morish dessert is a beloved comfort food for many South Africans.

My favourite theory, and the most popular, is that Malva pudding was once flavoured with the leaves of geranium, which, in Afrikaans, translates to Malva. But some say it got its name from a woman called Malva. And others, that it was flavoured with Malvasia wine.

Common mallow yields disc-shaped seeds, or 'nutlets', that are edible and snacked on like 'cheeses'. The leaves can be cooked and eaten like spinach, added to thicken soups or deep-fried like green wafers.

noun. mal·​va. ˈmalvə 1. capitalized : a genus of Old World herbs (family Malvaceae) having palmate leaves and tribracteate flowers with naked reniform indehiscent carpels.

The ingredients for the pudding usually include flour, sugar, eggs, butter, milk, vinegar, and apricot jam. The pudding is baked in the oven and then soaked in a sweet syrup made from sugar, butter, and cream.

Amarula is a cream liqueur from South Africa. It is made with sugar, cream and the fruit of the African marula tree (Sclerocarya birrea) which is also locally called the elephant tree or the marriage tree. It has an alcohol content of 17% by volume (34 proof).

How long can you keep Malva in the fridge? ›

Leftovers keep in the fridge for up to 4 days or can be frozen. Microwave or reheat in the oven to serve.

It pairs really well with a twist of lime, too. Add Cointreau to drinks that are normally a little bitter, like cranberry or grapefruit juices, to open up their sweeter notes. Orange liqueurs like Cointreau and triple sec go really well with tequila drinks like margaritas, as well as run drinks.

It was common practice to include small silver coins in the pudding mixture, which could be kept by the person whose serving included them. The usual choice was a silver threepence or a sixpence.

In South Africa, we refer to baking soda as bicarbonate of soda. Generally used as a raising agent, bicarbonate of soda can be added to batter to aerate the mix for a fluffy batter, or used in baking to help mixes to rise. When combined with an acidic agent, such as vinegar or lemon juice, bicarbonate of soda fizzes.

Malva pudding has distinctly Dutch origins. Dutch colonists brought the pudding to South Africa when they arrived in the mid-1600s, largely in connection with Dutch East India voyages. In some ways, the dessert provided a taste of home for European families establishing a colony in Africa's hot and arid climate.

Malva pudding is a traditional South African dessert consisting of a pudding base covered in a creamy, sweet sauce made with water, cream, vanilla, butter, and sugar. The pudding is usually made from butter, sugar, eggs, apricot jam, milk, flour, and salt.

The Wayfarers, a sort of Guiding for native African girls began in 1926 after a visit to the colony by Olave Baden-Powell. In 1935 there were some 600 Wayfarers and 300 Sunbeams, the African equivalent of Brownies in Guiding. In 1940, the two movements started to merge; this process was completed in 1950.