As I mentioned in my post on Wattalapam cake last week, my mother has been making a series of Iftar treats, several of which are her twists on the traditional Wattalapam pudding. Continuing with the theme of Iftar, today’s recipe is another twist on Wattalapam – my mother’s wattalapam jelly pudding.

I tried to make it once last year, following my mother’s recipe I had shared on this blog a few years back. It went quite well till I removed the cooked, fragrant pudding mix from the stove. I made the mistake of mixing the agar agar into the pudding mix, while it was still quite hot, due to which the pudding never thickened further even after being in the refrigerator for a whole day.
When I mentioned this to my mother recently, she immediately made this the following day making sure I saw the entire process especially when to mix the agar agar into the pudding mix.
Hope you enjoy this delicious pudding recipe! I am taking this dessert over to Angie’s Fiesta Friday #126 and for the first time to Cindy’s Gluten free Fridays #201.
Wattalapam Jelly Pudding
Ingredients:
- Coconut milk – 1 cup, thick
- Egg – 1
- Jaggery – ½ to 1 cup, depending on taste
- Cardamom – 3 or 4, crushed
- Vanilla extract – 2 tsp
- Flavour-less jelly mix or Agar agar – 1 ½ tsp
- Hot water – 3-4 tbsp
Method
- Mix the coconut milk and jaggery.
- Lightly whisk the egg before adding the jaggery-milk mixture. Blend the mixture well.
- Add the crushed cardamom and vanilla extract to the mixture.
- Cook the pudding mixture on low heat, stirring continuously, for about 10 mins.
- Remove the thickened mixture from the heat and keep aside to cool to at least 50% what it’s heat was when removed from the stove. This is an important step.
- Mix the jelly or agar agar powder with the hot water and let it cool slightly.
- Beat the jelly mix into the cooled pudding mixture.
- Cool and refrigerate.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.
My kind of dessert, looks so good Ahila! 🙂
Thank you, Linda 🙂
Mmmm! This sounds so good! It reminds me of Mexican Flan, but with no milk products! 😀
Thanks, Julianna and yes, Sri Lankan desserts tend to use coconut milk.
Avila– this is beautiful!! Looks like an exotic flan– with all those flavors and coconut milk!! thinking it would be sweet and cool on a summer’s evening!! thanks!
Thank you, Rhonda, for your lovely comment. By the way, my name has a ‘h’ in it, not a ‘v’ 🙂
Oh so sorry!! Fingers slipped! xox
🙂
This looks so good Ahila. I have been meaning to make this ever since I did the series on SriLanka!
Hope you enjoy it, Indu. I am planning to post next the actual Wattalapam recipe as my mother finished her Ramadan series of treats this month by making it this weekend.
WOW I didn’t know there could be so many variations of wattalapam!
I guess my mother enjoys creating her own wattalapam fusion recipes more than the traditional recipe.
Ahila, I love the coconut and jaggery flavors of the Wattalapam and this recipe is brilliant! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for your lovely comment, Sandhya 🙂
Wattalapam is my favourite dessert, I love it. Both my parents are Sri Lankan and cooking and withholding traditional Sri Lankan dishes is important to me. Glad to have discovered your blog here Ahila. Lorelle 🙂
https://amindfultravellerblog.wordpress.com/
Had wattalapam last time I was in SL. Yum! Eatable.space