One of the ways you should be eating tigernuts from now on is by making this dessert. This tigernut-biscuit pudding is a combination of tigernuts and coconut milk with a biscuit base and is light, crunchy, sweet and nutty. It's everything you want a dessert to be and does not take too much effort either. If you have leftover biscuits which have gone soft then you can use them too.
Tigernuts which are tubers are also known under the name atadwe, fie, earth almonds, yellow nut sedge and a host of others. Apart from consuming them raw by simply chewing them, they can also be used to make milk or pudding. It has also been suggested that tigernuts are an aphrodisiac.
While testing this recipe, right away I knew that I wanted a 2 layer dessert with contrasting textures, something that would remind me of a mini-cheesecake. The resulting product is a light and creamy tigernut and coconut mix, on top of a solid and crunchy base by way of the crushed biscuits.
One of the most important things for this recipe is to ensure that you have washed your tigernuts well. There can sometimes be an intense earthiness which can be rather off-putting when too much. A lot of that can literally be washed away.
The tigernuts are blended with the coconut milk before the entire mixture is sieved and then cooked for a few minutes. You may be tempted to blend the tigernuts with water, sieve, and lastly mix it with the coconut milk. In my experience, however, there is quite a bit of watering down of the intensity of the nuts. If your food processor or blender is very powerful then maybe you could get away with using a minimal amount of water. The easier way, however, is to blend the coconut milk with the tigernuts.
I also prefer the light brown tigernuts to the black ones for this recipe. The tigernuts generally have an even sweeter taste when they are left to dry for longer. This is great because then you can reduce the amount of sugar that you would end up adding to the recipe. The almond essence is optional. I have tested the recipe both with and without the essence and both versions are amazing. If you aren't a fan of tigernuts but love coconuts then this simple coconut dessert is a lovely alternative.
Tigernut-Biscuit Pudding
Equipment
- 3 dessert glasses or short glass tumblers
Ingredients
- 300 grams tigernuts
- 100 grams biscuits milk shortcake
- 400 ml coconut milk
- 2 tsp cornstarch
- 2 drops almond flavouring essence optional
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 40 grams butter
- 2 tbsp sugar
- salt
Instructions
- Crush biscuits by putting them in a ziplock bag or a clear plastic bag and breaking them into smaller bits with a rolling pin.
- Melt butter, mix with biscuits and pour into a baking pan or small cake tin.
- Bake (180 °C) for about 10 minutes and then leave to cool.
- Wash tigernuts several times properly with soap and water until clean. Make sure to rinse well.
- Blend tigernuts with coconut milk until thoroughly mixed but not overly fine or smooth.
- Pass the mixture through a sieve, adding just a bit of water to help with the process.
- Pour sieved product into a pan and add almond extract, vanilla essence, sugar and a pinch of salt.
- Take 2 tablespoons of the tigernut and coconut milk mixture and dissolve the cornstarch in it and then pour back into the pan.
- Over medium heat, stir the mixture for 5 minutes and leave to cool.
- Crush cooled biscuits with the back of a tablespoon.
- Distribute evenly into glasses and press down to get a compact surface.
- Pour tigernut mixture on top of the biscuit base and cover with cling film.
- Refrigerate overnight and serve cold.
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