Friday 4 September 2009

Malva Pudding


Good with coffee! I've always been confused about the name of this 'poeding', because malva means geranium in Afrikaans, and there's no connection that I can see. According to Wikipedia it comes from the name of a wine; or a woman. Neither sounds convincing to me, but here's the recipe.

It's an old-fashioned recipe, so there's more butter and cream in it than you should probably eat in one go. It also contains apricot jam, which is apparently the staple ingredient in South African baking.

I checked my copies of Tafel-Vreugde (1920) and Lekkerkos (1945) for older versions of the recipe, but no luck. Perhaps it was called something else then. I found recipes for 'Maanligpoeding', 'Plumpoeding', 'Goedkoop Poeding', 'Macaronipoeding', 'Slappoeding', 'Polisiepoeding', 'Ertappelpoeding',* and a few recipes for something called 'blamaans' - blancmange? The spelling is pretty random in these old books, and also just pretty. A lot of words don't make sense until you say them out loud and realise they're English words, written in Afrikaans.

I'm going to have to try some of them.

*Moonlight pudding; Plum pudding, obviously; Cheap pudding; Macaroni pudding, yuck; Sloppy pudding; Police pudding; Potato pudding, also yuck, I should think.

10 comments:

Rosy Lady said...

Malvapoeding is definitely one of my favourites! Especially on a cold Sunday afternoon with custard. Mmm. I can definitely recommend the Blanc Mange too, my Ouma used to make it in colours of white and pink. Thanks for the memories (and making my mouth water).

Masha said...

Love those pudding names! Polisiepoeding? How odd.
I always thought that malva poeding was like "malva lekker" which is a marshmallow. I think this "malva" refers to the the liquirice like plant that the "mallow" in Marshmallow refers to. Or anyway, that's always been my assumption.

How about good old Asyn Poeding? Or "Oom Japie se Gunsteling"? That is actually really good.

Ruby in the Dust said...

en brandewyntert, or tipsy tart! love it, especially at Christmas time. yummmm.

Unknown said...

Mmmmmm
Looks great.
You are tagged in my blog, take a look if you want.

khairun said...

This is the kind of dessert that would have a thick red line drawn across it at my pre natal clinic. Eating this would probably have my baby shooting out in no time
(sorry for the rather graphic image there. Hope that hasn't offended your readers - Im 9 months pregnant btw) :D

Love your blog!

-Khairun

Denise Kiggan said...

So interesting! Malva pudding is one of my favorites - pity it doesn't help my cholesterol readings though!

Anja said...

OK, Why do so many Africaans words look somewhat German or Dutch? Ouma, which I'm guessing is "grandmother" is Oma in German. I'm sure I'm just showing my ignorance of history and geography, but I'm just curious. Also, Geskenke (is this "gifts" (in German Geschenke)? Anyway, Moonlight pudding sounds just heavenly! And if coffee is involved I'm in!

pam said...

There is never too much cream and butter for me to eat in "one go"! I am definitely going to make this. Thanks for sharing.

Jesse said...

Anja - you're quite right, Afrikaans is a mixture of German and Dutch. Lots of the words are very similar, although the grammar is closer to Dutch than German.

Anonymous said...

I think malva pudding is also known as hannah's malva