West Africa · Dessert
Rice Bread (Baked mashed plantain and rice flour ginger cake)
A dense, spiced West African tea cake blending overripe mashed plantains with coarse rice flour and fiery grated ginger.
The story
Deeply rooted in Americo-Liberian heritage, rice bread occupies a revered place at Sunday afternoon tea tables, Thanksgiving celebrations, and Christmas gatherings. The recipe synthesizes indigenous Liberian staples like rice and plantains with Western baking traditions brought by nineteenth-century settlers. A crucial technical element is the exclusive use of overripe, black-skinned plantains, which provide essential natural pectin and concentrated sugars that allow heavy rice flour to bake into a moist, chewy crumb without collapsing.
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