Growing up as a first generation American with a mother from the Fiji Islands we continuously hear about how holidays are celebrated in Fiji with fruit cake and lemonade or pudding and cha (tea). Of course we as kids thought that pudding was actual pudding but through questions we found out that pudding was actually a Fijian inspired cake.
Recently I was surfing Facebook and I seen a recipe for pudding, so is my first instinct to go ahead and look through the process once I seen it was easy I screenshot it so I can show my mom. On New Years Eve I recalled the post, excitingly told my mom and showed her the screenshot. She was a little bit skeptical because the recipe didn’t seem the same as it had back in her day, she asked if it had to be steamed as it did when they were in Fiji or if it could be baked. Once I told her that it could be baked, she said go check the cupboard and see if we have all of the ingredients and of course we did so we went ahead and gave it a shot.
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The recipe I found was fairly simple it called for::
-2 cups coconut milk (2 cans)
-1 cup sugar
-3 table spoons of butter
-2 cups self rising flour
The process was pretty easy:
-Melt sugar in a pan
-Add in the coconut milk
-Stir together until it boils and gets rich in color
-In a bowl mix butter with the flour
-Add sugar mixture and combine well
-Add to a greased pan
-Bake at 350 for 45 minutes
*We used white sugar but the lady on the post used raw Fiji sugar*
*We used dried coconut milk powder that you rehydrate with hot water*
Thoughts:
Mom:
She now admits that she doesn't remember the taste from Fiji that much but she liked this
She wants to try it steamed (to have it be a softer texture)
She would have added half a cup of sugar
She thinks we should have browned the sugar a little bit more
Me:
It taste really good
Not too dense
Great flavor (but I would have liked a little more coconut flavor coming in)
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I'm glad that we tried this and I can't wait to try the steamed version. Back in Fiji they had wood stoves outside so they would steam instead of baking so I think that the steamed version would be a little bit more like the pudding mom had when she was back home.