Cinnamon rice pudding

Tuscan Cinnamon Rice Pudding

Winter time is warm homely dessert time and this classic Tuscan rice pudding is as good as it gets when you feel you need a comfort pudding. It’s really important to use Arborio rice, it’s a creamy full rice that absorbs the cinnamon flavour perfectly. It’s a rich pudding that will serve 4 to 6 people depending on what you serve it with. If you have one of those fancy star shaped moulds it looks amazing.

What you need

4 cups milk
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon (I know it sounds like a lot but it’s right)
1/3 cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter
3 eggs separated

The process

Bring the milk to a boil in a large pot on a medium to high heat. As soon as the milk boils toss in the rice and give it a good stir, reduce the heat to medium and cook the rice for about 30 minutes until the milk has been absorbed then remove from the heat.

Add the cinnamon, sugar and 5 tablespoons of the butter to the hot rice off the heat and stir it in until the butter has completely melted and the cinnamon and sugar evenly distributed and leave it to cool to room temperature.

Now put your oven on to 180 Celsius while you finish the recipe.

Add the egg yolks and stir into the cooled rice, set aside. In a separate bowl beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and then fold into the rice mixture. You don’t want to mix it in, just gently fold it to distribute. It is fine to have white streaks through your mixture.

Now take the last tablespoon of butter and grease a 23cm round mould well. Spoon in your mixture and smooth over the top. You can give it a press and even a tap on the counter to make sure that there is no air in the mixture.

Bake it fo about an hour until the top is nicely browned and the rice is set.

Let it cool for a few minutes after removing from the oven and then turn it out. You may need to slide a knife around the top edge.

Serve while still warm with some whipped cream or sliced fresh fruit or both.

This is proper comfort food and if you like this you are going to love the Malva pudding recipe.