I rarely ate maja blanca as a kid. The rare occasion I would have had it would have been at someone else’s home or out at a Filipino restaurant. So I was a bit surprised when it placed quite high in the list of favorite Pinoy desserts. I made maja blanca for the first time recently and though it was pleasant, it wasn’t memorable. A cold pudding with corn in it just doesn’t float my boat, if you know what I mean. I am beginning to think that what you are exposed to foodwise in your first 15-20 years of life leaves an indelible mark in one’s memory banks… and this dessert just doesn’t register with me… There are other recipes around without the corn (most likely closer to the original, whatever that may be) that are really more like a white pudding…
The recipe which I decided to use is attributed to Amelita Adriano Daez in The Philippine Cookbook. In a medium to large sized casserole or pot, add 4 cups 
coconut milk, 2 cups buko juice, 1 cup powdered milk, ½ cup water, 1 and ¼ cup sugar, ½ teaspoon salt, 1 cup cornstarch that has been dissolved in 1 cup water, 1 can of cream style corn and buko from 2 coconuts. Simmer all of this over a low flame until it thickens a bit, say 15-20 minutes, then pour into serving dishes and cool. This should be placed in the fridge before serving with latik (recipe in previous post) sprinkled on top of the dessert. The addition of powdered milk sounds odd but the author herself explains that it makes for a more pleasant texture…
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My town’s version was called Kalamay Mais which was actually made from young corn scraped from the cob, coconut milk and sugar stir-cooked in a kawa until thick (as you would polenta) and then transferred onto a banana leaf lined flattish containers to set. In roughing out situations, the mixture is sometimes portioned out into bamboo cylinders where they are cooked over slow fire. You then shuck the bamboo vessel to get to the tubular treat. You come accross this really cheap street food all over Central and South America in either of their sweet or savoury incarnations steamed, baked or grilled in their own corn husk wrappers but lamentably without our latik.
i’m not big fan of maja either, but i know that aside from latik, we have an additional topping: the grated coconut from which the gata was extracted is mixed with a little sugar and toasted over low heat until brown. you have to keep stirring the mixture so the sugar does not burn. this is called “budbod” and is sprinkled on top of the maja, together with the latik.
In our family, we have two varieties of maja blanca which involved high labor. The first one is made out of finely ground rice — 2 cups rice plus 2 cups water (“milagrosa†variety) and can be flavored with “dayap†rind or “tuba†(1 cup) that comes from palm trees — where the vinegar comes from. We use carabao milk (4 cups) reduced to at least a quarter by boiling it down and let cool before mixing it with the other ingredients. We add virgin coconut milk (4 cups). Yes, extracted from grated coconut without drop of water. Then we add one can evaporated milk to give it an off white color and sugar (2 cups). The second one is made out of corn on the cob either the yellow or white variety. The corn ears and rice, again the “milagrosa†variety are soaked overnight. Then grind very fine with water added and pass through a cloth sieve. Sugar is then added. We cook it in a flat bottom cooking vessel under slow fire and stirring it nonstop with a wooden spoon (it resembled a small boat paddle) until bubbles are formed on top which we called “puwit nang manok.†When it reached this stage, we keep cooking it for another 30 minutes. That means stirring it so crush would not form at the bottom of the cooking vessel. Cooking time is approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes. Once ready, we pour it on a flat plate or bare bilao and let it set for four hours. We top both with “latik†which is kind of very light brown not the brown one to go with the delicate texture of the maja blanca.
MM,
I regularly make maja blanca here in Korea. My korean friends love it! They can’t get enough of it. My recipe calls for the making of the latik. Then you take the coconut oil that has been rendered in the pan and use that to line the pans you will pour the maja blanca mixture into. The coconut oil imparts a great flavor to the dessert.
Maja Blanca is actually one of my favorites. Maria Clara your recipes sound fantastic. Will have to try that. Growing up,there was an older woman, Aling Ditas, in our home town who made what the locals called “atole”. To begin with, it was yellow , not white and got that way through the ground corn, or so I was told. It had a creamy texture as opposed to others I have tasted that have a “gelatin” consistency. Only she made it that way, the same way her mother made and sold it when my grandmother was growing up. It was the best version of Maja Blanca I have ever tried. She has passed on and unfortunately no one in her family knows the recipe. If I ever replicate something similar to that I will definitely share it with you MM!
I rarely ate maja blanca too. If there is one kakanin which I didn’t (and still don’t) care for much, it’s the maja blanca.
Maja blanca is actually a direct translation to Spanish of blancmange a group of molded puddings from the Middle Ages prepared from the thickened milk extracted from nuts, usually almonds, almost like a congealed horchata. The Francophile Thomas Jefferson reputedly served it often in Montebello after which time it fell into disfavor until recently when one of its decendants surprised and delighted us with its freshness and ease of preparation as panna cotta. Independently developed, it is very similar to the Chinese dessert flavoured with almond or coconut peddled around as almond jello. I find our version, specially when prepared from fresh ingredients, far superior as it showcases the flavour of corn enriched with the fresh and the caramelized (latik) flavours of coconut milk.
you can also make this using squash right? i think that’s what my mother makes.
Maria Clara, the first maja you describe is very similar to the Tibok-tibok (heartbeat) of Pampangga which is white or off-white in color, uses rice flour, sugar, dayap rind, carabao’s milk & coconut milk, so it is called maja blanca. The second one which uses corn is usually yellow in color and popularly known as maja mais. Apicio, thanks for the info, I agree with you that our
native maja, the original kind, using local ingredients is a delight to the palate.
MM, I totally agree with your statement about connecting to what you ate growing up. I think it explains why I will always prefer delicate Japanese snacks over palate crushing American ones (loads of sugar a good dessert does not make), as I spent my early years in the P.I. and Japan. I prefer (but not limited to) Tocino to Bacon, Rice to Bread, and my Avocado will forever be sweet!
As for the Maja Blanca, I’ve never had it, haha. I wanted to post anyway :)
so did you like the resulting maja blanca?
To tell you the truth I haven’t cooked the recipe yet, but instinct tells me that this recipe becomes my favorite. I just rolled down the net buttons for a bit of favourable recipes on ‘Maja Blanca’ alone and came up with a collection of few tens, but yours will be rated 9 for I already know why the deisigner of this recipe uses powdered milk and fresh buko juice. It’s the luster and the perfect taste!
thanks guys! today, i just fancy to cook maja blanca. i used to cook it when i was in college but now i cant remember the exact measurement. your recipe surely helped!
my mom’s friend makes really good maja blanca. we ordered from her during one of our family gatherings and everyone loved it!
there is a modern variation of majabalanca which i always cook.instead of latik, i pour on grated cheddar cheese, the taste is great!!! my singaporean friends loovveee it!!! try it, it’s tastier and yumm-m-yoo–oohh..the cheese blended well with the sweet pudding..
helo po!!
ask q lng po kng san nangaling ang nem ng maja? kng cno una gmawa n2..
helo poh!!!!
i wanna ask lng poh…. kung ano anong provinces poh b ang my specialty ng maja blanca…
tnx…
divine, sorry, I don’t know which provinces consider this a specialty.
great i can start to make one for me
been long time time i never cook maja so really helpfulthe recipe thanks a lot
I beg to disagree. In my ‘unschooled’ opinion, Maja blanca is a dessert to die for..if it’s made using carabao milk (from Angeles City,Pampanga). I’ve had it at countless family reunions here in Metro Manila. During parties, a tita of mine would have it delivered from Angeles. absolutely divine!
everytime you do things that doesn’t please you would really wont fare well as you said you rarely eat maja blanca as a kid.I find your recipe confusing if not complicated.before you brag that Maja doesn’t float your boat,first have the knowledge on how to do the accurate recipe.Your recipe turns out too loose if not so hard.What’s the consistency of the stickiness of maja,how many will it yield in a platter or dish(and it’s size),the volume/wt.contents in a dish.The Pleasant texture should be what? Make recipe’s that is real good and dont need to brag about it,be professional even if you’re not.
chef gin. First of all, it IS NOT my recipe for Maja Blanca, and I clearly attribute the recipe to source, so obviously you did not read and comprehend much of the post in its original form. Secondly, yes, I do agree we are generally biased to early food experiences, but if you bothered to read s significant portion of the 1,600 posts in the archives of this blog, I have done MANY filipino dishes and delicacies even if I did not like them as a kid. Having food biases is a completely normal situation and one has to try and overcome them by trying more and more dishes. It doesn’t float my boat because I did not find the recipe or the dish to be to my personal liking, that is all. Yes it is an opinion. And just like I cannot be shocked by the lack of sense in your first non-sentence, neither should you take offence that I am not a keen consumer of maja blanca. The version I made as photographed above was NEITHER too loose nor too hard, from where you concluded such is beyond me. As for my professionalism, I have never said I am a professional, but I am PRETTY sure that I am happy with this blog and so are the thousands of readers who seem to come back for more. As for your ability to write a decent recipe given your confusing comment above, that I would leave to your own readers to decide… I may NOT be a chef, but I have probably experienced and cooked a wider variety of dishes and come across more produce than you have, and my posts/views/opinions are read (liked or not) in 15,000+ page views of this blog EVERY SINGLE DAY ON AVERAGE. This is a food blog, not a recipe book, not an instructional manual at a culinary institute. Get a grip, “chef.”
Chef gin aka “arlie” from Washington. Not only are you non-sensical, you are obviously technologically stupid as well. I can tell you are one and the same commenter from your IP address, and have deleted your repeated follow up emails. So trying to come in and comment repeatedly as another commenter is just plain dumb. Get a life and find your own maja blanca recipe if you are so desperate…there are others on the net. As for the one above, it came out exactly as it is pictured. And if you do live in washington, your access to real fresh coconut milk and fresh buko juice is very unlikely, therefore, you probably haven’t even followed this recipe correctly… If you are a real chef, you would know what the ingredients described above are. Duh.
why not publish the one in lifestylepinoy it was great maja mais brulet,thnaks
woah, MM.
never read anything that made you sound mad. don’t mind them people like “chef.” ingit lang ang mga yan! they wish they have your blog and your following.
Maria Clara’s recipe sounds soooo good. I love Maja Blanca and just as VMA said, we call it “Tibuk-tibuk” in Pampanga. I will try to closely follow Maria Clara’s recipe and will let you know how I fared. Enjoy your vacation.
i’m so glad i found this website….i’ve been reading ur blog for some time now. i enjoy reading you blog especially when you feature foods that i grew up eating from pampanga, like “tibuk-tibuk”. i also want to thank maria clara for her recipe. i think you should give it a try too, maybe that could change ur mind about “maja blanca”. i just used half & half (coffee creamer, i think) in place of carabao’s milk since we don’t have that in calif. but still tasted great…also i used a can of coconut cream instead of coconut milk to make the latik…it produced more latik. thanks again!
what vitamin we can get from Maja blanca
Great, Maja Blanca is my favorite. But I forgot how to cook it after 10 years, esp. that I am now in the place where I cannot find real ccoconut, because evrything is now in the cans. But I usually cooked it with chocolate nips on top for kids birthday.
hello there, I loved maja Blanca too but I forgot How to cook it , I remember little bet , I think corn, gata and sugar too , could you please help me if this is right? thank you guys happy weekend :}
I COOK THE BEST CLASSICAL YELLOW COLOR “MAJA BLANKA” PLUS “LATIK” IN THE WORLD. I AM ALSO EXCELLENT IN MAKING “SUMAN SA IBUS,” OF COURSE WITH THE RIGHT SWEET SOUCE. I HAVE BEEN COOKING THEM AND MANY MORE PINOY, SINCE I WAS 10-YEAR-OLD WHEN I WAS A SELF-EMPLOYED AND WORKING STUDENT FROM ELEMENTARY TO COLLEGE. TODAY, I AM ONE OF THE GRADUATE OF AMERICA.
IT’S NOT WHAT I DO IN LIFE, BUT BELIEVE IT OR NOT, YOU’RE GOING TO LOVE THIS, I AM A GIFTED PALM LINES READERS FOR FREE! YOU’LL BE SURPRISED HOW PRECISE MY READING WILL BE.
IMAGINE, “KUMAKAIN KA NA NG MASARAP NA MAJA BLANKA AT MY LIBRENG HULA PA,” WHAT MORE CAN YOU SAY ON THOSE?
MARAMING SALAMAT PO SA INYONG LAHAT: MALIGAYANG PASKO AT MANIGOONG BAGONG TAON PO SA INYONG LAHAT. HAPPY SIMBANG GABI PO MULA SA DECEMBER 16 WITH YOU ALL MY BELOVE RP!
tnx talaga sa sit na ito. this was a big help for my thesis making squash out of maja blanca. i took some important infos from this site. tnx talaga. continue doing such a great website like this. kaka inspire .
its a great recipe, You know why, maja blanca
is my favorite
Hi Marketman,
For us who wouldn’t have the time to make maja and happens to fancy eating it, would you suggest a place where to best get it? thanks
Maria Clara’s recipe reminds me of what my great uncle used to make growing up. I don’t like the gelatinous majas at all. I’m going to try her recipe. Nice blog btw :)
*Do you know if Maria Clara has a blog?
can you help to my thesis about maja blanca manga flavor?