Cassava pudding is the modern Solomon Islands dessert — grated cassava baked with coconut milk into a moist, chewy slab. Cassava and coconut are paired all through Melanesian island cooking.
Cut a wedge of cassava pudding — dense golden-brown, fragrant with banana and coconut. Bite: dense, slightly chewy from cassava starch, intensely sweet from banana and brown sugar, the coconut milk creaminess wrapping everything. The cinnamon perfumes. Drizzled with extra coconut milk, this is the Solomon Islands family-gathering closer.
Squeezing cassava is essential — removes hydrocyanic acid (poisonous) and excess water. Banana provides natural sweetness and binding. Long baking sets the dense pudding.
Variations
With added pineapple. With pumpkin. With added grated coconut on top. Steamed instead of baked. With added jackfruit. With less sugar.
On the Palate
Where Cassava Pudding Solomon sits in the Solomon Islands flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 8How it's made
9 steps · 30 min active + 1 hour waiting
- 112 min
Peel and grate 1 kg fresh cassava (food processor with grating disc helps).
- 25 min
Squeeze grated cassava in cheesecloth to remove excess liquid (and toxic compounds).
Watch outSqueeze the grated cassava hard in the cloth until the liquid runs clear-ish and the pulp is nearly dry — this drives off the toxic juice and stops a watery, unset pudding.
- 34 min
Mash 4 ripe bananas.
- 45 min
Combine cassava + banana + 300 ml coconut milk + 150 g brown sugar + 1 tsp salt + 1 tsp cinnamon + 1 tsp vanilla.
- 54 min
Preheat oven to 175°C. Butter a 23-cm baking dish.
- 62 min
Pour mixture into dish; smooth top.
- 747 min
Bake 45-50 min until top is golden and pudding is set.
Watch outIt's set when the top is golden and the middle no longer wobbles like liquid — a knife slid into the center should come out clean, not slick with batter.
- 816 min
Cool 15 min.
- 91 min
Serve warm with extra coconut milk drizzled over.
