Tembleque facts for kids
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| Type | Pudding |
|---|---|
| Course | Dessert |
| Place of origin | Puerto Rico |
| Region or state | Puerto Rico |
| Main ingredients | Coconut milk, heavy cream, cornstarch, sugar, and cinnamon |
Tembleque is a coconut dessert pudding from Puerto Rico. It is one of the most popular desserts in Puerto Rican cuisine.
Ingredients
Tembleque is made by cooking coconut cream, coconut milk, heavy cream (optional), salt, cornstarch, sugar, frequently orange blossom water and garnished with ground cinnamon. Tembleque can also be topped with syrup made from honey, vanilla, rum, sherry wine, chopped figs, spices and pineapple juice or a relish usually made with rum, mint, vanilla, diced mango, kumquats, and pineapple or chocolate shavings with diced sautéed bananas or sweet plantains.
Cultural importance
It is a holiday dish, served on New Year's Day throughout the island of Puerto Rico. While the recipe may have originated in Puerto Rico, there are variants on the dish in Latin America and other countries. In Brazil, the dish is known as manjar branco. According to the Encyclopedia of Puerto Rico, published by the Foundation for the Humanities, each time a Puerto Rican migrant to the United States comes closer and closer to forgetting their roots, foods like tembleque bring them back and remind them who they are, reminds them of their island and of their grandmother.
Tembleque
In Spanish, the word tembleque is an adjective used to describe something that shakes or a noun, to describe the shakes themselves. The dessert, due to its Jell-O-like, gel texture trembles, shivers, shakes, and that is what the finished dessert does, when prepared correctly.
