Recipe
🍰 DESSERT
Benben in Mokmok (Arrowroot and Coconut Sap Dumplings)
Marshallese arrowroot simmered with sweet coconut sap into a soft jelly, shaped into little balls and rolled in fresh grated coconut.
Marshallese · easy · serves 6
prep 15 min · cook 15 min
~333 cal · 2g protein · 32g carbs · 23g fat · 7g fiber · 4g sugars · 21g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Benben in mokmok is a traditional Marshallese sweet built from two island staples, mokmok, the arrowroot starch dug and washed on the atolls, and jekaro, the sweet sap tapped from the coconut palm.
The starch is loosened with water and sap, then poured slowly into boiling liquid and stirred until it thickens into a soft, sticky, translucent jelly, a texture Marshallese call kamolij.
While still warm it is shaped into small balls or patties and rolled in freshly grated coconut, an old atoll dessert that turns two of the Marshall Islands' most reliable foods into something sweet.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and gluten-, dairy-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 6
1 cup arrowroot flour (mokmok)
3/4 cup coconut sap syrup (jekaro or jekmai)
Hard to find? coconut sugar dissolved in warm water - stands in for tapped palm sap, a little less floral but the same sweetness
2.5 cups, divided water
1 cup, for rolling freshly grated coconut
Instructions
1
Whisk the arrowroot with 1/2 cup of the water and the coconut sap until it forms a smooth, watery slurry with no lumps.
2
Bring the remaining 2 cups of water to a rolling boil in a saucepan.
3
Pour the slurry slowly into the boiling water in a thin stream, stirring hard the whole time, until it turns thick, sticky and translucent.
✎ Chef’s note
Pour slowly and keep stirring; tipping it all in at once sets it into hard lumps instead of a smooth jelly.
4
Cook and stir another minute or two, then take off the heat and let it cool until it can be handled.
5
With wet hands, shape the warm jelly into small balls or patties and roll each one in grated coconut. Serve at room temperature.
Marshallese atoll dessert, recorded in Spennemann, Essays on the Marshallese Past.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Majuro. Fermented breadfruit has a name and a method: bwiro. Green breadfruit is scraped and cored, soaked in seawater for days, kneaded and then buried in a leaf-lined pit, where it keeps for a year or more against a lean season or a storm. The dried forms, jaankun and manakajen, keep longer still.
🗺️
Marshall Islands. The Marshallese-English dictionary records around twenty distinct breadfruit preparations, which is a fair measure of how central the tree is. Iaraj is the giant swamp taro, grown in dug pits like Kiribati's babai, and the um is the earth oven, the same hot-stone method used across the Pacific under other names.
🌍
Oceania. The staple crops here were carried on purpose. Lapita voyagers moving east from roughly three thousand years ago brought taro, yam, banana, breadfruit and coconut with them along with pigs and chickens, because most of the islands they settled had almost nothing edible growing on them. The earth oven travelled too, as umu, imu, hangi, lovo, mumu, motu and um.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Marshall Islands
Bwiro with FishPreserved-breadfruit dumplings in sweet coconut, served with grilled reef fish.
Marshallese Banana PancakesThick, sweet banana pancakes flecked with coconut, griddled golden, a modern Marshall Islands breakfast favorite.
Marshallese Macaroni SaladA cool, creamy macaroni salad with tinned tuna and crisp vegetables, the potluck staple of the Marshall Islands.
Browse all Marshall Islands recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Pot or saucepan, Whisk.
Storing it: Uncooked parcels freeze well and cook from frozen. Cooked ones keep 2 to 3 days refrigerated and steam or pan-warm to serve.
Make it a Marshall Islands meal
Barramundi in Banana LeafDinner
JekaroDrink
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Frequently asked questions
What is Benben in Mokmok (Arrowroot and Coconut Sap Dumplings)?
Marshallese arrowroot simmered with sweet coconut sap into a soft jelly, shaped into little balls and rolled in fresh grated coconut.
Where does Benben in Mokmok (Arrowroot and Coconut Sap Dumplings) come from?
Benben in Mokmok (Arrowroot and Coconut Sap Dumplings) is a Marshallese dish from Majuro, Marshall Islands.
Can Benben in Mokmok (Arrowroot and Coconut Sap Dumplings) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Benben in Mokmok (Arrowroot and Coconut Sap Dumplings) recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Benben in Mokmok (Arrowroot and Coconut Sap Dumplings) safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Benben in Mokmok (Arrowroot and Coconut Sap Dumplings) take to make?
About 30 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 15 minutes cooking), serving 6.
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