Beninese Desserts

Beninese woman enjoy preparing sweet dishes, which is because they have simple recipes for sweets that don’t require such a long time and effort. The simplest dessert is Kanyah and its original recipe was brought from Sierra Leone. Kanyah has only three ingredients: rice, peanuts and sugar. In order to prepare Kanyah you have to grind the peanuts and the rice into small peaces, combine them and grind them together until it becomes a powder, add sugar and mix and press it into a pan then cut it into squares.

Kashata is another popular dessert made of sugar, fresh or moist grated coconut or peanut cinnamon and a drop of salt. In order to cook Kashata you have to melt the sugar in a hot skillet, add the other ingredients and stir the mixture for a couple of minutes. The resulted mixture is scooped into a pan then cut into squares while is warm. It is served cold.

Peoki is a peanut cake made using grilled peanuts, peanut or palm oil, banana leafs and corn flour. It is easy to prepare and requires twenty minutes to cook. Roasted nuts and sugar peanuts are made all over Benin and they are sold in almost every bar and restaurant in Benin. The prepare sugar peanuts you need water, sugar and of course peanuts. To cook sugar peanuts, first you have to remove the shell from the peanuts, then mix the water with the sugar in a saucepan and boil the mixture until it becomes syrup and then add the peanuts. Afterwards put the mixture including the peanuts into a preheated oven until the syrup dries on the peanuts.