For curiosity sake, I wanted to try cooking Fijian purini, a steamed pudding. It's also known as "burnt" sugar pudding but the sugar isn't really burnt. Other Pacific Islands have similar versions called by different names, for instance Samoan Puligi [globaltableadventure.com] and Tongan Puteni [www.youtube.com]

I used this recipe because I'd got it off ilovecoconutcream.com a long time ago (that website no longer exists).
[www.thecoconet.tv] I halved the recipe.

I have a lot of steamed pudding recipes as I used to like them so much (sweet things no longer attract me). I had fun making this one. When you put the milk into the "burnt" sugar, it froths up like hokey pokey mixture does when you add the baking soda.

When cooked, it was a nice spicy flavour with an unusual cloying sort of texture, a bit like a gooey chocolate brownie. It was too sweet for me these days, but now I know what "burnt" sugar pudding is like. The joys of discovery.

Ahh I am sure we had something similar in Rarotonga but with banana in it.
Great comfort food.

I love it when you discover how to make something. It completely satisfying.

J1 I have a recipe given to me as a child by the person that used to make it. In Fiji we used fresh coconut cream but in Nz and Auz I have had to use canned that needed adjusting quite a bit. The recipe looks similar to what you have posted. We always used raw sugar and the sugar was caramlized to the point it almost burnt. That is what give it flavour. Not sure what else you would like to know.

Baked47 I'd love to know how you adapt the canned coconut cream to be similar to fresh?

I don't think you can turn a can of coconut cream into fresh cream but what I have done is added half a can of coconut cream and half can of water. Even with coconut milk I add some water. I find it is too thick especially the cream and the cake comes out with wrong texture. Also the coconut flavour is too strong in the cans as you would know fresh coconut cream tastes very nice. What I also do is take the sugar burning a little bit further. Not burnt but dark caramel. This takes a little practice. I use Kara brand coconut milk/cream as I find this is the closest flavour but the cream is very very thick

I use Maggi (Nestle) coconut milk powder for all my cooking [www.nestleprofessional.co.nz]
It costs more than using cans but means I can make up the exact quantity of coconut milk or cream I need for a recipe.
I keep it in a closed container in the fridge and it lasts perfectly fine. In fact, I do the same for dairy milk powder now as we hardly ever use milk and it became wasteful to buy a litre for some recipe and it saves buying that plastic bottle.

I, too, use milk powder (skimmed) instead of fresh milk. At a cost of $9.49 for 1kg of powder, I stretch it a bit further by using only 90g to make up a litre when the packet calls for 100g. This means for every kg pack, I am getting 11 litres instead of 10. Thats just over 86c a litre and I don't even notice the difference. It only takes about a minute to make up 1 litre, and I can do it whenever I need it. I don't have that last minute rush to the supermarket because I've inadvertantly run out of milk.

I must investigate buying coconut milk/cream powder, as I'm often left with a part-can due to me halving most recipes and still getting 2 servings. The joys of living alone! It's no problem to make something with the left-over bit, but then I've got to eat it

I use coconut milk powder too J1. Especially love it in Thai pumpkin soup. I don't measure it when I use it - I just taste and adjust as I go along. I got tired of having part cans of coconut milk either going in the freezer for 'next time', or tossing it out. It keeps for ages in the pantry.

Winging it as to quantity sounds fun Heather. I quite often have stir-cooked vegs for lunch and sometimes add some coconut milk powder and water to them without measuring but usually I'm a stick-to-the-measure person. A long time ago I calculated out all the coconut milk powder and water quantities for coconut milk and cream measures (1/4 cup, 1/3rd cup, 1/2 cup, etc) and glance at this list when needed.

Hi there, may I get a recipe for Fijian Purini. I always wanted to make this and did few times, but didn’t turn out good
Thanks

Kamleshni, if you go to the very first post in this thread you will see a link there for Fijian Purini. I'll copy it here for you:
[www.thecoconet.tv]
Good luck, and let us know how your purini turns out.