Anytime I travel, I’m always on the lookout for new flavors and unique desserts to recreate back home. My recent trip to South Africa was no exception. Along with a fabulous team, mostly from my local church, we had the honor of walking alongside those who are serving their needy communities in life-changing ways. More about that later.
But first, let’s get to the new-to-me dessert I discovered, recommended by my South African friends: Malva Pudding. This warm, sweet, comforting soft cake, soaked in a rich cream sauce and served with ice cream or custard, is as delicious as it is easy to make. Here’s the recipe:
Malva Pudding
Preheat your oven to 350°F. Lightly butter an 8X8 pan. I used a glass dish.
With a mixer, beat together until thickened and light yellow:
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
Add in:
1 tablespoon apricot jam
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon vinegar
In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients:
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Alternating with 1/3 cup whole milk, add the dry ingredients until well blended. Don’t overmix.
Immediately pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake at 350F. The soda begins to react instantly to the vinegar, so you don’t want to delay the baking.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Toward the end of the baking, start the sauce by combining these ingredients in a pot and heating gently on the stove:
3/4 cup heavy cream
6 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup hot water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Optional: add 1 tablespoon Amurula liquor, a traditional South African favorite
Some recipes I found said to boil the sauce, while others did not. I didn’t boil mine. The main thing is to make sure the butter is melted and the sugar is dissolved.
Pour the sauce over the cake as soon as it comes out of the oven. You can use a fork to put small holes in the cake first so it soaks in faster, but you don’t have to. At first, you’ll think all that sauce can’t possibly get soaked up by the cake, but it can. I’d wait about 30 minutes to serve, to give the cake time to soak up all the goodness. This is a rich dessert, so you don’t need large pieces. Serve warm, with vanilla ice cream or your best vanilla custard on the side.
Malva Pudding wasn’t the only treasure I picked up in South Africa. Most precious of all was time spent with the most amazing people, living and giving of themselves daily to love and serve their neighbors. We assisted in soup kitchens, an inner city preschool, a township tutoring center, a local church’s kids program, a settlement community, and more. Too many of the children we met had fetal alcohol syndrome and came from broken homes. Our talented team did everything from peeling mountains of Brussels sprouts and clearing brush to leading worship concerts and praying with those in need.
One of my most touching moments was when visiting a business/ministry that rescues and restores women caught in human trafficking. They give them practical job skills along with holistic care so they can heal from the trauma they’ve experienced. After hearing some of their stories, I knew these were some of the bravest women I’ve ever met.
Here are links to the ministries we worked alongside, if you’d like to learn more: Ethnos Movement International and Wild Mongoo.
At the end of our time, we enjoyed the beauty of South Africa, going on a safari and spending a day in Cape Town, including a trip up to Table Mountain. As their seasons are opposite ours, we visited in early winter, which seemed more like early fall to those of us from East Tennessee. I look forward to returning someday and discovering more of what the people and place have to offer. And maybe my friends can show me how to make another South African treat, Koeksisters. It sounds like “cooked sisters” to me, haha. They say it’s “lekker!”
