It's scorching outside with a temperature of 36° C. No firewood cooking today but instead let's have a little fun and prepare a sweet treat that can cool you down in this kind of weather. A popular dessert which is simple to make and enjoyable to eat. This dessert is uniquely Filipino and has turned into an actual flavor for other treats. A flavor for ice cream, cakes, shakes, salad, cookies and the possibilities are endless. During parties and celebrations this dessert is often present for the occasion.
Buko Pandan
Where do we begin? We start with two cups for fresh water to prepare our green gulaman. Gulaman is the local word for Gelatin and yes that is that jiggling treat that mom used to make. To make the gelatin blocks can be bought from the market which you would need to boil. These day they already have them in packets which you would just need to mix with water. I actually just found this in the refrigerator and it says "Export Quality" well I guess it should be good enough.
Also these days a concentrated flavor could be bought which makes it easier for everyone. Everyone is using it these days and do forgive me as I took the shortcup. It does say concentrated natural flavor of the Pandan. To those who are not familiar with the Pandan leaf. There are some planted in pots at the side of my aunt's house. It is a very fragrant leaf and best added to rice when cooking it. Now let me just tell you how the flavor is extracted. You would need a bunch of leaves and tie them into a knot. Boil them for almost half an hour and the flavor is extracted. Some use coconut water when boiling it which gives it an enhanced flavor. I should have done that instead but we took the easier path.
For the mixture use the two cups of water and in the packet of the gelatin. For the concentrated buko pandan flavor just use one teaspoon it should be enough. Mix them all together and make sure there are no lumps form the gelatin powder. Now turn on that stove and just put in on medium heat. The thing is you should not let the mixture boil. When you see it beginning to heat up with vapor rising turn of the stove right away. But if you got it almost at the boiling point you should still be good. So just a reminder don't take your eyes off it.
When you got it nice and hot. Just pour it over to a tray and let it cool off for it to harden. To quicken the process it is best to put it in a shallow tray and put it in the refrigerator. There is a debate about it though. Is it ok to put hot stuff in the refrigerator? Some say yes and some say no? What is it then? There is also a myth that it will break your refrigerator when you stick hot food in it. Anyway I did put in that hot gelatin in our refrigerator lol. Do comment about it to settle it once and for all.
Before we proceed any further. I just realized we do not have all the ingredients yet. Anyway let's go out for a quick trip to the market and let's get those ingredients. Here we are at a local shop and they also have those gelatin ready made and also in red color. But we are not getting those as we made our own back at home chillin in the refrigerator right now. What we are looking for is what we call "Sago" which looks similar to tapioca. Sago is extracted from palms and when boiled it turns into a spongy pearl that sometimes has a white center.
They sell a lot of these gelatin as it is added to some other deserts. If you would notice they also have it in blue color.
This is the "Sago" and it is almost sold out. We just need a cup so no worries.
Now for the "Buko" which is coconut in our language. See now I teaching you some local words lol. What we need is a fresh coconut which we will be requesting to be shredded into strips. These coconut we brought in from outside the city although there are some coconut trees near the beaches and some areas. Not a lot of them though but if we had one at home I would climb it myself. No that was a joke I'd probably fall off the tree. I'll leave it to the death metal shirt dude to prepare our coconut.
Death metal dude opens up our coconut like a pro. I requested to not break the shell and just slice over the top. We would be using it later for the shoot and make our dessert look pretty and nice. As he opened it up the coconut water is also saved and placed in a plastic for us to take home. Fresh coconut water is so refreshing and very healthy to drink. You could even survive from it if ever you are stuck in a deserted island. Now I think I need to learn how to climb up that tree.
Death metal coconut dude is now shredding the meat into strips. All packed up we got our ingredients and we are all set. Let's go back home them and our gelatin should be ready.
Here is the Sago we got from the market and we will be starting to mix all of our ingredients.
We will need a can of sweet condensed milk. Sweet and delicious which I have a lot of sweet memories of. When I was a kid I used this as a spread on my bread. I used to eat like 3 to 4 pieces of bread with this delicious milk and watch tv of hours. It is also best to have it toasted first to get a crunchy treat. My wife also had her share of memories with this milk. They used to pour it on rice and have a nice little rice desert. How about you? Do you have any memories of any weird desserts from your childhood? We are getting off track here now. Let's get back to our preparation. Just pour in all of it in a bowl with our Sago.
Next use an all purpose cream. Any brand should do the trick but we used Nestle cream as it is quite popular here. Just use one pack of a can if available.
Mix them all together with a little stir.
Here is our shredded coconut and always use fresh. There are those bought commercially that could last a long time in the refrigerator. We do not buy those here. We always get our coconuts fresh but we do not leave it uneaten for too long. Something I got from my aunt that it could give you a bad stomach. There is also a little secret to make it last longer before you mix it in our dessert. Boil the coconut strips in sugar which would make it last for 3 days. We did not do that as I believe this treat would not last a day here.
Again stir them all together. Not needed but I love doing it.
Now our gelatin has hardened perfectly. Just poke it a bit making sure it is firm. Poke it again and again if you prefer so soft and bouncy. Next slice them up into small cubes. It does not need to be perfect and small bite sizes should be fine. After that just dump it all in our mixture. This time make sure to mix all the ingredients very well. This is best cooled in the refrigerator and to make it last more you can keep it in the freezer. All set and quite very simple to prepare don't you think?
Here you go our Buko Pandan dessert. Served in the coconut shell that we saved earlier. I also stole some Pandan leaves from my aunt's plant as a garnish.
Wait we still have something missing. We forgot about the vanilla ice cream as a topping. Let's get it on then.
Here we go one of the local brands here. This particular one is the own brand of the largest super mall in the country. This brand is a bit cheaper than the other brands and I love their chocolate flavor.
Get your ice cream scooper ready.
For the finishing touch that delicious ice cream on top. Perfect to cool you down in this hot weather. Hope you had a good time with me today in preparing this dessert. Please do leave some comments and share some sweetness.
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All photos are original and taken with
Lumix GX85 Sigma 50mm 1.4
