Zimbabwe Dessert Staples, From Plenty of Fruit Cake Recipes, and Pies to Doughnuts

Zimbabwe is a part of South Africa, known for its beautiful undulating landscape as much as is it known for its wildlife. As for its food, the locals love to consume a lot of beverages, like Maheu, and a lot of meat stews, local bread prepared with corn meal, called Sadza, to ‘exotic’ dishes like Mopane worms, eaten as stew or fried to a crisp. As for desserts, Zimbabwe has a select few that the locals love and prepare on special occasions and uses plenty of local ingredients. This is your cue to prepare some delish dessert recipes, perhaps you can start from the “how to make sweet bread recipe” because Zimambwe likes their bread.

1. Chikenduza

Also known as Zimbabwean candy cakes, Chikenduza is pink and sweet and authentically Zimbabwean, that are bready and look like muffins. These cakes are made with flour, butter, vanilla, milk, sugar, yeast, eggs, salt, powdered sugar, and red food colouring. Once the dough forms after hand kneading, it is rolled into balls and pushed into muffin tins or a similar vessel and baked in them. Once it puffs up nicely, it will double the size of a muffin and once it cools, it is covered in a thick pink icing, that drips down the tops of the cakes. It is made with powdered sugar, water, and a tiny bit of food colouring.

2. Malva Pudding

Malva pudding is a South African dessert, that is also popular in Southern African countries. It has a pudding base, made from butter, sugar, eggs, apricot jam, milk, flour, and salt that is covered in a sauce made with water, cream, vanilla, butter, and sugar. The dessert is eaten warm and tastes even better with ice cream, whipped cream, or vanilla custard. It is believed that the dish is named malva pudding after the Afrikaans word malva, meaning marshmallow, referring to the similarities between marshmallows and the pudding's texture, although some say the name is derived from the fact that the pudding used to contain Malvasia wine.

3. Tsubvu Pie

Made with Tsubvu, or the Smellyberry Fingerleaf Fruit is a popular local fruit, this dessert might sound unappetising but is delicious and makes good use of the pungent fruit. It is made by pureeing the fruit, by mixing it with sweetened condensed milk, eggs, a little cinnamon, nutmeg and some chives. The filling is added to a pie crust and baked to result in a dark brownish tart with purple accents. It is best enjoyed warm with a dollop of whipping cream.

4. Melktert

Another South African dessert, Meltert was created by Dutch settlers in “Cape” and with time became popular in other African countries too. It consists of a pastry crust filled with a milk custard made with flour, milk, eggs and sugar. The milk ratio is more than the eggs in the tart so the tart is light with a strong flavour of milk. Once baked, it is served with a dusting of ground cinnamon. The milk might also be infused with cinnamon while the custard is being made and depending on the cook, the custard could be layered after baking the crust or baked along wth the crust, both taste equally delicious.

5. Mbatata

Mbatata are soft sweet potato cookies that come from another African country, Malawi, but is also popular in Zimbabwe. It’s a tiny country and the cookies are usually shaped into hearts to reflect the warmth of the locals. It uses sweet potatoes, butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and raisins that are combined to make a dough and baked, making cookies that are soft but delicious to bite into and not too sweet. They are perfect to bake in autumn with the warmth of cinnamon and dry fruits.

6. Magwinya

These treats are enjoyed across African countries and especially loved in Southern African countries, it goes by different names – Magwinya, Amagwinya, Mafetcook, Vetkoek or Fat Cakes. They are somewhat like doughnuts, or rather Mexican Buñuelo, with a little sweetness to them. The dough is made with flour, yeast, sugar, a little salt, oil and water, shaped into balls and deep fried until golden brown. They are great for breakfast eaten with a cup of tea, and in some African countries have savoury filling ranging from fish, cheese to potato chips.

7. Mawuyu or Umkhomo Fruit Cake

These are quite a unique dessert and Mawuyu, Umkhomo or Baobab fruit is said to be highly nutritious having triple the amount of Vitamin C than your average orange, a lot of calcium and also packed with antioxidants. This dessert is only of the forms that is made by locals, it could also be used to make pies and tarts. A typical fruitcake uses butter or margarine, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, buttermilk and the baobab fruit pulp. It is baked in a cake tin and eaten plain or sometimes covered with frosting.