African desserts

African dessert culture is enormous and varied — a single label can barely capture the difference between a Moroccan pastilla and a South African koeksister and a Kenyan mandazi. Many of the most travelled sweets are the dough-fried sweets of the East and West African coasts — mandazi, puff-puff, chinchin — light, lightly cardamom-spiced, and central to weekend baking.

The Southern African tradition (deeply marked by Cape Malay, Dutch and Khoisan influences) produced the syrup-soaked plait of koeksisters and the melktert custard tart. North African desserts, by contrast, share the Mediterranean repertoire of honey-syruped pastries and stuffed dates. Across the continent coconut, peanut, palm sugar, cardamom, ginger, sorghum and the year's tropical fruit are the recurring ingredients.

Many sweets are designed for shared eating — fried doughs and small cakes sold by the dozen on roadside carts, never alone — and the dessert canon remains tightly linked to street and home cooking rather than restaurant patisserie.