// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did Tembleque say to its date? "You shake me.

For the village in Spain, see Tembleque, Spain.

For the large one-piece skirt, see Pollera.

Tembleque

Type	Pudding
Course	Dessert
Place of origin	Puerto Rico
Region or state	Puerto Rico
Main ingredients	Coconut milk, heavy cream, cornstarch, sugar, and cinnamon

Tembleque is a coconut dessert pudding from Puerto Rico similar to blancmange and related to Catalan menjar blanc and Filipino maja blanca. It is one of the best-known desserts in Puerto Rican cuisine.

Ingredients

Tembleque is made by the simmering and constant stirring of coconut milk as well as optional heavy cream, salt, cornstarch, sugar, and in some recipes orange blossom water until thick. It is then poured into a mold and set to chill till it is smooth and stiff, with a texture similar to pudding, and garnished with ground cinnamon or toasted coconut.

Cultural importance

It is a holiday dish, served on New Year's Day throughout the island of Puerto Rico. While the recipe may have originated in Puerto Rico, there are variants on the dish such as manjar blanco in Latin America, manjar branco in Brazil, and maja blanca in the Philippines. According to the Encyclopedia of Puerto Rico, published by the Foundation for the Humanities, each time a Puerto Rican migrant to the United States comes closer and closer to forgetting their roots, foods like tembleque bring them back and remind them of who they are, of their island, and of their grandmother.

Etymology

In Spanish, the word tembleque is an adjective used to describe something that shakes, or a noun to describe the shakes themselves. The dessert, due to its Jell-O-like gel texture, trembles, shivers, and shakes if it has been prepared correctly.

See also

• Coconut bar
• Khanom thuai
• Bebinca
• Haupia
• Maja blanca
• Manjar branco