Ecuadorian Sweets and Deserts

Even though majority of the times Ecuadorians eat a piece of fruit after the food.

There are also traditional and very delicious sweets and desserts.

Here are a few of them.

Hope you will enjoy them as much as I have.

Quimbolitos are a type of steamed puddings.

They are also called sweet tamales because they resemble tamales very closely.

Quimbolitos are sold on the streets and in restaurants and are immensely popular among Ecuadorians.

And they are one of my favorite desserts here in Ecuador.

Not hard to make and fun to eat, I recommend them to everyone.

Read more HERE.

Do you know what a taxo is?

This delicious fruit is also called banana passionfruit because of its yellow color and banana like appearance.

It makes excellent smoothies and ice-cream, and has many health benefits.

If you did not know taxo yet, I recommend you try it out.

You can find instruction on how to make a taxo smoothie or homemade ice-cream HERE.

Espumilla is a pink and ivory colored guaba fruit foam that is sold on the streets.

It is very popular and luckily easy to make it home.

You just need some guabas, eggs and sugar.

And voilá, you have your own batch of delicious espumilla.

Read more HERE.

Melcocha can be found all around the Ecuador where ever there are roads and travelers to buy the products.

It is an Ecuadorian artisan taffy and extremely delicious.

The traditional recipe is made only with sugar and butter but you can add different fruit juices to it to give it flavor.

My personal favorite is mandarin flavored melcocha.

Want to know how to make Melcocha?

Read it HERE.

Tomate de Arbol or tree tomato is a popular Ecuadorian fruit.

It is tangy with a little sweetness, is a great source of Vitamin A, B6 and C and also contains Vitamin E and Thiamine.

In Ecuador it is used in juice, smoothies, desserts, and hot salsa.

I especially enjoy tree tomatoes smoothies because of their great taste and because they are so good for my health.

Would you like to make a smoothie for yourself?

Find the recipe HERE.

Taxo smoothie and ice-cream with health benefits

Taxo is a small, almost tear shaped fruit that is yellow to orange in color when ripe.

Banana passionfruit is the fruit of several plants in the genus Passiflora, and are therefore related to the passion fruit.

They look somewhat like a straight, small banana with rounded ends.

The banana passionfruit name was given to the fruit in New Zealand, where passionfruit are also prevalent.

In Hawaii, it is called banana poka.

In its Latin American homeland, it is known as curuba, curuba de Castilla, or curuba sabanera blanca (Colombia); taxo, tacso, tagso, tauso (Ecuador); parcha, taxo (Venezuela), tumbo or curuba (Bolivia); tacso, tumbo, tumbo del norte, trompos, tintin or purpur (Peru).

Cutting open this fruit reveals seeds galore, surrounded by a pulp.

Forest & Kim Starr [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Because of the seeds, which have an unpleasant flavor, this fruit is rarely eaten fresh.

The pulp has a somewhat tanginess to the tongue and is most commonly used in juice and ice cream.

The yellow oblong fruit contains the flavanoids or antioxidants that are included in so many foods to help dampen the impact of free radicals in the body.

Along with the ravagers of free radicals the Taxo contains Calcium, Iron, Niacin, Riboflavin, Sodium, Vitamin A and C.

There are many cousins to Taxo, as it is part of the Passiflora family.

It is of course related to the Passion Fruit, Granadilla and  Maracuya, all members of Passiflora. 

Taxo ice-cream or sherbet is very popular in Ecuador as Taxo smoothies.

It can also be made into juice and the tangy taste is excellent for a refreshing summer drink.

Taxo Smoothie

Ingredients

1 cup of Taxo  

1 cup of water

2 cups of milk

1/4 teaspoons of vainilla

3 teaspoons of sugar

Mix the taxo fruit with water in the blender.

Pass the mix through a sieve or colander.

Mix the juice with milk, vainilla and sugar in a blender.

Enjoy!

Taxo growing at my backyard. Hopefully we'll get flowers and fruits soon! And then smoothies and ice-cream from homegrown fruits.

Taxo ice-cream (without ice-cream machine)

Integrates

 116g milk powder
187 ml or ¾ cup cold water
290 g of sugar,
500 ml of juice of taxo
1 pack of 3 ounces (87g) of natural gelatin,
250ml boiling water,
3 egg whites,

Mix in a pan of thick seat powdered milk, sugar and cold water.

Heat the mix, stirring constantly, and boil until it takes the consistency of thick sauce.

Remove from heat to cool down.

In another bowl dissolve the gelatin package cup of boiling water and allow it to cool.

When milk and gelatin are cool, mix adding the taxo juice.

After stirring with spoon, blend the whole.

Finally mix with beaten egg whites until it is stiff and put the mix in the freezer to set.

Just before serving beat the ice-cream with a wooden spoon or electric mixer to make them soft and foamy.

Enjoy!