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If you've never indulged in Venezuelan sweets you are in for a treat. Featured here a five typical desserts you must sample on a trip to this beautiful and diverse South American country. These culinary delights are made from local ingredients and bursting with Caribbean flavors.
Join Fine Dining Lovers as we discover typical Venezuelan desserts and some of the best food the country has to offer. Who knows? These dishes may inspire your next vacation. Let's get started!
5 Typical Venezuelan Dessert Recipes
Venezuelan Quesillo
Quesillo is also known as Venezuelan flan. It is a caramel custard cooked in a bain-marie just like traditional flan. The recipe calls for sugar, a can of sweetened condensed milk, milk, eggs, and vanilla extract. To make this treat, melt the sugar and use it to coat the flan moulds. Then mix the liquid ingredients, pour them into the coated moulds, place them in the water bath, and bake in the oven. Find the full recipe here.
Bien Me Sabe
Bien me sabe is a heavenly dessert that features layers of sponge cake and coconut cream topped with meringue. Try this fun recipe for bien me sabe.
Arequipe
In Venezuela, dulce de leche (a rich caramel sauce made from milk) is called arequipe. It is enjoyed on its own, as a topping for cakes, mixed into desserts, used as a dip for fruit or even as a sweetener for coffee. Its ingredients include condensed milk, evaporated milk, cinnamon, and vanilla. Making arequipe requires patience: plan to spend 30 to 40 minutes constantly stirring the ingredients over low heat to keep them from burning. But the results are well worth the effort. Here is a great recipe for arequipe.
Pionono
A pionono is a jellyroll cake beloved in Venezuela but also popular in South America. Try these tips for making a spectacular jelly roll. For a truly authentic Venezuelan taste fill it with arequipe. This cake contains eggs, sugar, flour, dulce de leche, butter, cornstarch and icing sugar. First mix and bake the batter, creating a thin sheet that you slather with dulce de leche. Then roll up the sheet with the dulce de leche inside and powder it with the icing sugar.
Arroz con Leche
Arroz con leche is a Venezuelan rice pudding flavoured with cinnamon and vanilla. It is creamy, comforting and delicious. To make it, you need rice, water, milk, cinnamon, sugar, salt, and vanilla. First, cook the rice until it starts to soften, then add the milk and cinnamon, stirring frequently. Then add the sugar and continue cooking. Add the salt at the end. Here is the full version of this simple but tasty recipe.
Traditional Venezuelan Food
The desserts mentioned above are enough to make you a fan of Venezuelan cuisine but the country has much more to offer. Corn empanadas and pabellón criollo (a dish of rice, black beans, shredded beef and fried yellow plantains) are among the must-try foods. Some would say the true star of Venezuelan cuisine are arepas.
Venezuelan arepas are small breads made from corn dough. They are served warm and are usually stuffed with cheese but may also be filled with meat, avocado or eggs, depending on the time of day. This video shows you how to make them:
