Top 8 African Desserts That You Must Try

“Any meal without a dessert is merely a snack” and “your dessert has the ability to make or break your meal.”

In case you agree with these statements, then you are perusing through the right post. Desserts are confectionery courses normally used to conclude the main meal.

These courses typically consist of beverages and sweet foods such as nuts, cheese, coffee, dessert wines and other spicy items. On this post, we are going to enlighten you on the various African Desserts that you ought to make sure that you try out before you die.

Regardless of whether you crave healthy, decadent, savory, or just sweet African Desserts, this post has got you all covered.

Vitumbua (Coconut Rice Pancakes)

Vitumbua is a typical Swahili dessert made from coconut and rice and then deep fried. Give this fantastic dessert a try and feel the fluffiness and sugar in the ingredients’ melt inside your mouth.

This food is better served with Mbaazi, but it can also be consumed as a dessert on its own. It is a sweet, mouth-watering, and delicious dessert whose recipe has been passed down through generations in Eastern Africa.

You can purchase Vitumbuas from various food hawkers on the Kenyan streets especially Mombasa. They will cost you around $0.30 and $0.50 (this translates to 30 Kenyan shillings to 50 Kenyan shillings).

To find these foods in plenty, you are advised to visit the country during the Muslim’s holy month (Ramadhan).

Maziwa Lala (Mala)

Maziwa Lala is simply regarded as fermented milk in the East African countries. This natural and delicious dessert is manufactured from pasteurized milk without the use of additives.

The list pointing out the benefits of Maziwa Lala is extensive and illustrious. Most remarkably, this dessert can easily be digested by individuals who can’t drink fresh milk (the condition known as lactose intolerance).

Once it comes to meals, ingested meals need to come out, and that’s why Maziwa Mala is utilized as dessert to assist in taming the hazardous bacteria that could cause constipation’.

Besides its ability to alleviate serious stomach complications, the dessert’s good bacteria has also been known to freshen the breath by diminishing hydrogen sulfide contents on the human tongue. Make sure you give this awesome dessert a try the next time you visit East Africa.

Injera

Sometimes transcribed as “Taita” or “Enjera,” Injera is a flat, round, and fermented sourdough bread with a unique and to some extent spongy texture.

This dessert is present amidst every mealtime in nations such as Sudan, Djibouti, Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea, and Ethiopia, with every nation devising its own unique variation.

Genuine Injera is cooked from an extremely nutritious grain by the name Teff, though one can also utilize white flours or whole wheat. The dessert is better served with crisp and creamy cucumbers, couscous, or Ethiopian Lentils.

Caakiri

Caakiri (also alluded to as Tiakri, Thiakry, Thiacry, Chakrey, or Chakery) is a dessert found in Western Africa. It is somewhat similar to the rice pudding from India and the Middle East.

Nowadays, natives use couscous (prepared from wheat semolina) to make Caakiri, unlike traditionally when Caakiri would be made from common African grains such as black-eyed peas, maize, or even millet and fonio.

The term Caakiri alludes to the grain used to make the dish as well as the final dish itself. It is fascinating to guess that the modern day Caakiri, a sweet dessert or snack prepared from fermented milk and grain, could be directly related to a similar tart dish that was once upon a time served as a main dish, but due to the drastic change brought about by time, evolved to become a snack and dessert dish.

Ngalakh

Ngalakh (also known as Ngallax or Ngalax) is a West African porridge (dessert) well known in nations such as Senegal. Just like Caakiri, Ngalakh is a sweet porridge, comparable to most of the Africa’s grain-grounded and Fufu like staples mixed with milk or water to create beverages and porridges.

Ngalakh’s primary ingredient is araw (or Karaw), which is some sort of couscous prepared from millet. While Caakiri is prepared with sour cream sauce or yogurt, Ngalakh is flavored using the fruit from the baobab tree known as bouye and peanut butter.

In Europe and America, these baobab trees are well known by the readers of “The Little Princess.” In dryer environment regions of Africa, baobab trees are regarded as trees of legend and myth. These trees are keenly tendered to by the residents and are particularly useful.

Mandazi

Also alluded to as Swahili Coconut or Doughnut Swahili Bun, Mandazi is a kind of fried bread originally concocted on the Swahili coasts in east Africa.

They are also one of the main dishes in the foods of the Swahili individuals inhabiting the African Great Lakes. This dessert is well known in East Africa and can be consumed with nearly every dips or just as a dessert on its own.

Mandazis resemble doughnuts’ since they all have a little bit of sweet taste differentiated by the addition of various ingredients. Nonetheless, East African Mandazi is usually more delicious compared to the USA style of doughnuts though they are typically served without any frosting or glazing.

Shuku Shuku (Coconut Macaroons)

West African nations have a profusion of delicious, easy, and quick snack desserts that taste fantastic and we all yearn for (at least those of us who live abroad).

Shuku shuku is one of the strong contenders when it comes to West African desserts. This particular dessert brings pleasurable childhood memories for West Africans, and they’ll make you wish that you played a part in their infancy.

Shuku shuku is a sweetened Nigerian dessert that has set up its way to the neighboring nations, and every nation has embraced it. The reason all these nations have adopted this dessert is because it tastes awesome and can be prepared within a short period of time.

The star ingredients in this dessert are sugar, eggs, coconuts, and wheat flour to assist in coating the coconut balls. One can also add vanilla bean in their recipe to add a dash of nutmeg.

Melkert

Melktert (an Afrikaans term for “milk tart”) is a south African dessert course consisting of a sweetened pastry crust inclosing a creamy filling prepared from eggs, sugar, flour, and milk.

Melktert is termed as a dessert course that exhibits Dutch traits.