Dessert31

Belizean desserts reflect the country’s tropical ingredients and cultural diversity. Many traditional sweets feature coconut, condensed milk, corn, cassava, or locally grown fruits, creating rich and flavorful desserts that are often served during holidays, celebrations, and family gatherings.

Some Belizean desserts are baked, while others are steamed or prepared on the stovetop using traditional techniques passed down through generations. Coconut-based sweets, puddings, and cakes are especially popular throughout the country.

Dishes like cassava pone, coconut tarts, sweet breads, and cookies such as polvorón highlight the influence of both Caribbean and Central American baking traditions.

In this category you’ll find Belizean dessert recipes that range from simple everyday treats to traditional sweets often enjoyed during special occasions.

Corn-and-cheese rosquillas, some filled with rapadura, the Central American baked ring
Rosquillas Hondureñas Dessert

Rosquillas Hondureñas

Rosquillas hondureñas are small baked rings of corn masa mixed with dry, salty cheese, shaped by hand, baked until crisp, and eaten with black coffee. They are the definitive snack of southern Honduras, made year-round but reaching their peak during Semana Santa, when families in Sabanagrande bake them by the hundred in clay ovens fired with ocote pine. What Makes Rosquillas Hondureñas Different from Nicaraguan and Spanish Rosquillas? The first time I bought rosquillas on the highway south of Tegucigalpa, a woman at a roadside stand near Sabanagrande had a…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Torrijas de Semana Santa, egg-dipped sweet bread fried and soaked in cinnamon syrup, the Holy Week tradition that shares its technique with molletes guatemaltecos
Molletes Guatemaltecos Dessert

Molletes Guatemaltecos

Molletes guatemaltecos are sweet bread rolls split, filled with manjar custard, dipped in whipped egg batter, fried golden, then steeped in warm panela-cinnamon syrup. They appear on the Guatemalan table twice a year: on the Day of the Dead (Día de Todos los Santos, November 1), where they sit alongside fiambre in cemetery ofrenda spreads, and during Semana Santa (Holy Week). They are not related to Mexican molletes, which are savory open-faced sandwiches. This is a Ladino colonial sweet — the mestizo, Spanish-influenced tradition — with no Maya antecedent. What…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Vendors at Chichicastenango market in Guatemala, with traditional food items on display
Champurradas Dessert

Champurradas

This champurradas recipe makes the large, flat, crisp round cookies found in every Guatemalan panadería — roughly saucer-sized discs, four to five inches across, built from wheat flour and masa harina creamed with butter and sugar, pressed thick with sesame seeds on top and throughout the dough. A colonial-era pan dulce staple, champurradas are dunked in morning coffee or the afternoon café de las tres. They are not to be confused with champurrado, the Mexican chocolate-corn drink. Why Guatemalans dunk their cookies — the pan dulce tradition behind champurradas In…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Golden baked corn and cheese cookie like a Honduran tustaca, served as a sweet coffee-time treat
Tustacas Dessert

Tustacas

Tustacas are a sweet Honduran corn cookie made from masa harina kneaded with fresh cuajada cheese, filled with grated dulce de rapadura, and baked until dry and crisp. They are not a tortilla dish, not a savory snack, and not a catracha. They are a cookie — baked in a clay oven fired with ocote wood in the workshops of Sabanagrande, eaten at merienda with a cup of hot coffee. If someone hands you a tustaca and it is savory, they gave you the wrong thing. Honduras's tortilla snacks are…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
A vendor pressing a marquesita on the round iron in Merida
Marquesitas Dessert

Marquesitas

In Mérida the marquesita carts come out at night. A man pours a thin batter onto a hot iron, presses it, and it crisps like a big wafer. Then the filling. The old one, the real one, is Nutella and grated queso de bola, the Dutch cheese. Sweet and salty together. He rolls it up tight while it is still hot and hands it to you in a paper. You eat it walking. What is a marquesita? A marquesita is a Yucatecan street dessert from Mérida. A thin batter is…
Fili Post
June 5, 2026
Mole de platano: fried plantains bathed in sweet Guatemalan chocolate mole sauce, garnished with toasted sesame seeds
Mole de Platano Dessert

Mole de Platano

Mole de plátano is a traditional Guatemalan dessert of fried ripe plantains bathed in a sweet chocolate mole sauce made with cacao tablets, chile pasa, roasted sesame and pumpkin seeds, cinnamon, and tomato. Syncretic in origin — Maya cacao and dried chiles in sweet sauce are pre-Hispanic, fried plantain is post-colonial — it was declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Guatemala in 2007. Ingredients For the plantains: 4 very ripe plantains (skin dark and soft, almost entirely black) 4 tablespoons neutral oil (for frying) For the mole sauce: 8 oz Guatemalan…
Fili Post
June 11, 2026
Rellenitos de plátano, fried plantain filled with sweet black beans
Rellenitos de Plátano Dessert

Rellenitos de Plátano

Short answer: Rellenitos de plátano are Guatemala's classic plantain dessert: very ripe plantains boiled skin-on, peeled, and mashed into a soft dough, then wrapped around a filling of sweetened black beans spiced with cinnamon and cocoa, shaped into smooth ovals, and fried golden. The skins stay on during boiling — they protect the flesh and deepen the flavor. They are sold warm from street stalls and home kitchens all over the country, year-round and especially during Lent. The trick that surprises people is the bean filling. Cooked down with sugar,…
Fili Post
June 11, 2026
Belizean Cassava Pone Recipe Dessert

Belizean Cassava Pone Recipe

Belizean cassava pone is a baked pudding made from finely grated cassava and fresh coconut, sweetened with brown sugar and baked until the edges caramelize and the interior sets into something dense and slightly stretchy. You will also hear it called cassava cake, plastic pudding, or yuca pudding across Belize and the wider Caribbean. Different names, same dish. It is a traditional teatime food, eaten in squares at room temperature with nothing alongside it. My mother made cassava pone on Saturdays when the cassava came in from the yard. She…
Isela Post
May 29, 2026
tart with meringue on plates near lemons on table
Belizean Lime Pie – A Tangy Sweet Treat for Special Occasions Dessert

Belizean Lime Pie – A Tangy Sweet Treat for Special Occasions

Lemon Meringue Pie (Belizean style) Description: Treat yourself to a taste of Belize with our delightful Belizean Lime Pie recipe. Featuring a tart, sweet, and luscious filling made with fresh limes, this pie is perfect for birthdays or any special celebration. Follow our easy instructions to make this delicious dessert at home. Ingredients: 1 can condensed milk (not filled milk) 4 eggs, separated 1/2 to 3/4 cups lime/lemon juice 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar Zest two limes/lemons Store-bought baked pie crust or homemade crust Homemade crust ingredients: 1 cup flour…
Joe Post
May 29, 2026
Rice Pudding Recipe - Belize News Post
Creamy Cardamom Rice Pudding – A Delicious Trip Down Memory Lane Dessert

Creamy Cardamom Rice Pudding – A Delicious Trip Down Memory Lane

Indulge in the comfort of this Creamy Cardamom Rice Pudding, a delightful dessert that takes you back in time. Inspired by flavors from around the world, our recipe is perfect for both savory and sweet cravings. Follow our simple instructions to create this soul-soothing treat. Rice Pudding Recipe Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups rice 4 cups water 4 cardamom pods, squashed but whole 1 cinnamon stick 1/2 cup sugar 1 can condensed milk 1 can of evaporated milk 1 cup whole milk Optional: golden raisins and additional cinnamon for serving Optional:…
Joe Post
May 29, 2026