Buko pandan dessert perfect treat during Ramadan

KOTA BHARU: Buko pandan, a sweet and creamy Filipino dessert, made of jelly cubes, young coconut, and sweetened cream infused with a variety of flavours, makes a perfect treat during Ramadan.

In fact, Idda Melisa Sukiman, who sells the mouth-watering cold dessert said, there had been a three-fold rise in demand since the start of the fasting month.

Idda Melisa, 38, learned how to make the buko pandan when she attended a cookery class organised by a professional chef from the Philippines sometime in 2018.

"I make the buko pandan dessert all year round but I will be kept busy during Ramadan to cope with the increased number of orders .

The ingredients needed to make buko pandan are corn, coconut flesh, fruit cocktail, nata de coco, gelatine, whipped cream, evaporated and condensed milk.

"I will usually make the jelly a day before preparing the sweet creamy sauce with pandan, lychee, mango and longan flavours," she told Bernama when met at her house in Kampung Putih here today.

Elaborating, Idda Melisa said daily she prepares about 1,500 containers of buko pandan for sale during this Ramadan.

The dessert containers come in three sizes where the M-sized containers are sold at RM12 each, L (RM37) and XL (RM70).

"Apart from local customers I also receive orders from people in Perak, Johor, Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Selangor," said Idda Melisa who is thankful for the growing popularity of her product and currently runs the business assisted by seven workers.

"I started the business with a capital of RM150 and as the sales increased I could afford to buy a coconut shredder machine and a packaging machine to facilitate production," she said. .

"Customers have already started to place orders to serve the dessert to guests during Hari Raya Aidilfitri," she added.

-- BERNAMA