Why do Filipinos have a sweet tooth, I mean look at their cuisines. Starting from the Adobos, Tocinos to their deserts and beverages which rarely goes without sugar content.

For those people with a sweet tooth wanting to visit the Philippines, the country has a lot of treat to satisfy that tooth. With many cultural influences throughout the country’s history, along with the use of Filipino flair and taste, a wealth of interesting sweets has resulted.

HALO-HALO

Haluhalo or Halo-Halo

Main ingredients Shaved ice, milk, various fruits

Haluhalo or Halo-halo (assorted) is a popular Filipino cold dessert which is a concoction of crushed ice, evaporated milk and various ingredients including, among others, sweetened beans, coconut julienes, sago, gulaman (seaweed gelatin), pinipig rice, boiled root crops in cubes, fruit slices, flan, and topped with a scoop of ice cream.

Haluhalo is believed to have been invented in the 1920s or 1930s at the Quinta Market in Quiapo, Manila as an innovation on the Japanese dessert mitsumame, combining it with ice sourced from the city’s then-nearby ice plant.

 The infamous halo-halo is an easy crowd-pleaser. From locals to tourists, everybody loves a tall glass of… well, everything. “Halo” is the Tagalog word for “mix”. So this complex dessert’s name is literally “mix-mix”, because it’s exactly what the diner has to do to be able to enjoy it in all its deliciousness. Halo-halo is a mélange of crushed ice, nata de coco, beans, sago pearls, jelly, sweetened saba banana, sweet potato, coconut, ube (purple yam) jam, evaporated milk, leche flan, ube ice cream, jackfruit, and fried pinipig (flattened immature rice grains). How’s that for complex.