Manjar Blanco (White Pudding), or Blancmange, is not a contemporary dessert. It’s actually in cookbooks from the tenth century, often with the addition of sugar, saffron, and even chicken. It resembles malabi, the famous creamy-jelly dessert commonly found today throughout the Middle East. Cassava starch, also known as tapioca flour, can thicken or jellify certain recipes. This root has been consumed since at least 2500 BCE in Latin America (Peru), and utensils for grating cassava tubers have been found in Mexico (Tehuacán and Tamaulipas) dating back to the first millennium BCE. It is possible that the Manjar Blanco prepared by crypto-Jews to celebrate Sukkot may have also used cassava starch for a thickener.  

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Manjar Blanco (White Pudding)

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• Author: Hélène Jawhara-Piñer

Print Recipe

Description

Taking it back to the early ages of dessert.

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

For the pudding:

• 1 tsp agar powder + ¼ cup almond milk
• 1 short cinnamon stick
• 3 cups almond milk
• 2 tbsp sugar
• ½ tsp rose water
• ½ tsp vanilla extract

For the toppings: 

• Mexican Pinon nuts, toasted (you can use pine nuts as a substitute)
• 2 matzah toffee sheets, broken into chunks
• Preserved orange, sliced
• 6 tbsp pomegranate syrup (1 tbsp per glass); you can add fresh seeds as well
• 2 apricots, cut into quarters

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Instructions

1. Place six small crystal glasses on a tray.
2. In a small bowl, combine the agar powder and the ¼ cup almond milk.
3. Place the cinnamon stick and sugar in a pan and pour over the remaining 3 cups of almond milk. Stir, and bring to a boil.
4. Once the almond milk is boiling, pour in the agar mixture and lower the heat. Stir constantly for about 3 minutes. Add the rose water and vanilla. It will thicken slightly but look runnier while it’s hot. As it cools down it will thicken more.
5. Remove the cinnamon stick and pour the manjar blanco into the glasses; try to avoid touching the edges. Let them cool at room temperature without moving them.
6. Once they are cooled, you can place them in the fridge for a firmer consistency (or if you’d prefer it chilled, which is recommended).
7. Decorate the top of the manjar blanco with any of the toppings and serve.

Recipes appear in Jawhara-Piñer’s books, Matzah and Flour: Recipes from the History of the Sephardic Jews, and Sephardi: Cooking the History. Recipes of the Jews of Spain and the Diaspora, from the 13th Century to Today. To dig deeper into Jewish food history, read Jawhara-Piñer’s Jews, Food, and Spain: The Oldest Medieval Spanish Cookbook and the Sephardic Culinary Heritage. 

Recipe and Story by Hélène Jawhara-Piñer 
Food Styling and Preparation by Julia Platt Leonard
Photography by Gabriella Marks 

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