Rice Pudding

[andiesenji]

19 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

See my post directly above yours!

 

Edit:  and I'm still working on that pound of Mediterranean Gourmet cinnamon.

 

It sounds like you were lucky and got real cinnamon and not the cassia, which is "supermarket" cinnamon, harsh and with none of the subtle complexities of real cinnamon.

 

I've been using Frontier fair trade organic cinnamon for several years.  It's highly rated as is their cacao, which I also use.

I used to buy it from Vitacost but Amazon now carries it.  It's from Ceylon and is true cinnamon.  I tried some of the Vietnamese (Saigon) cinnamon and while it is strong, it lacks some of the complexity that I can taste - sometimes being a supertaster is a pain.  

 

My rice pudding techniques have shifted over the years.  I'm using sweet rice and cooking it on the "quick" setting in my Zo rice cooker and then adding the milk (regular), sugar and spices and resetting the rice cooker to "porridge" and letting it go. The milk gets thick and half-way to the dulce de leche stage, which is the way I like it.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

I had forgotten about rice pudding, for some reason. I used to make it frequently many years ago, and have a favorite recipe from my old Betty Crocker cookbook. It's baked in the oven in a water bath and then topped with meringue and baked a few minutes more at a higher temp to set and brown the meringue. It calls for raisins, but I've made it with prunes chopped to the size of raisins, and that's really good too. It's good warm or cold, economical and has respectable protein for a dessert type dish. Time to break out that recipe again.

[Lisa Shock]

Dried cranberries work well, too.

[andiesenji]

I chop candied ginger very fine and add it to rice pudding along with saffron-infused milk.  

[kayb]

A few years ago, I got on a kick of champorado, Filipino chocolate rice porridge; not a pudding, I suppose, since it does not have eggs. This thread brings it to mind. Have to hunt up the recipe.

 

 

[Anna N]

 

 So reading the rice pudding topic put me in the worst kind of nostalgic mood.   My grandma used to make rice pudding in a glass Pyrex dish. She always put raisins in it and the very best part was the skin on the top!  I have tried the commercial versions and they're just not right.   And here at least they are extraordinarily expensive for what they are.  So I found a recipe that seemed close to what I recall, cut it down to size as there is only me and served it to myself in something almost as nostalgic – – one of a set of fruit nappies that my sister gave me on a visit to Canada many, many years ago and with a spoon from a set from Denmark when we visited my brother-in-law and his wife almost as many years ago!   There is a second helping in the fridge but I'll skip the nostalgia for that one! After I married my Danish husband I only made a Danish version of rice pudding which is also very, very good but it was nice to return to my roots. 

[andiesenji]

15 hours ago, kayb said:

A few years ago, I got on a kick of champorado, Filipino chocolate rice porridge; not a pudding, I suppose, since it does not have eggs. This thread brings it to mind. Have to hunt up the recipe.

 

 

Funny you should mention this.  A few days ago I was sorting through some of my old "tried and liked" recipes from the "net" and noticed this one, which was in my 2010 recipes folder, titled CHAMPION CHAMPORADO rice pud.

and a note that I used cocoa (KA black + extra 3 TBS of turb.sug) in addition to 1/3 cup sugar in the ingredients - because I have a problem with regular chocolate but not cocoa.

I also noted - used 1/2 cup heavy cream - no evap milk on hand...

 

[Katie Meadow]

Seeing this thread I too was made seriously nostalgic about rice pudding, and I made the simplest version possible the other day using arborio rice, two percent milk, sugar and vanilla bean seeds. Very plain but very satisfying. I'm after a creamy textured rice pudding, but one that doesn't use gobs of butter or multiple egg yolks or heavy cream. I'm definitely a fan of using arborio rice. Then I came across a risotto rice pudding recipe, for which incremental amounts of milk are added during cooking until mostly absorbed, as for risotto. Does anyone here use this method? 

[kayb]

2 hours ago, Katie Meadow said:

Seeing this thread I too was made seriously nostalgic about rice pudding, and I made the simplest version possible the other day using arborio rice, two percent milk, sugar and vanilla bean seeds. Very plain but very satisfying. I'm after a creamy textured rice pudding, but one that doesn't use gobs of butter or multiple egg yolks or heavy cream. I'm definitely a fan of using arborio rice. Then I came across a risotto rice pudding recipe, for which incremental amounts of milk are added during cooking until mostly absorbed, as for risotto. Does anyone here use this method? 

That's essentially the way you make champorado.

[Wholemeal Crank]

I had just over half of a gallon of skim milk that was just barely starting to go off--I drank a glass of it and realized it would be undrinkable by the next day.  I thought about what I could do with it that would halt the spoilage, and decided to try rice pudding from my rice cooker cookbook. 

The recipe called for white rice, and I used brown rice, figuring it would just take longer to cook. First step was to take just the milk and rice, and add it to the cooker on a porridge cycle.  Then I was supposed to take out a bit of hot milk (it would not be fully absorbed at that point), add it to a mixture of sugar and egg, pour that back into the rice, and continue it on the warm cycle (low heat setting), and stir it from time to time until it thickened up appropriately.   

Thinking I'd give the brown rice a head start, I set it on a timer so it would soak for 2 hours before starting to cook.  And the end result of that porridge cycle was brown rice, still a bit hard, with curdled milk bits including some large conglomerations of curdled milk bits with rice embedded in it.   

So the question:  what made the milk curdle?  Starting with skim instead of whole milk?  Starting with brown rice?  Starting with milk on the edge of spoilage?   

Every now and then I do have a craving for rice pudding, and I'd like to do it with brown rice on general principles, and I'd like it to not end in a sad mix of curdled bits of milk and badly cooked rice.  I previously worked on a recipe that starts with cooked rice, so that there is less of an issue with the brown rice--the different water requirement and cooking time are already be accounted for.  But, I wanted to use up milk this time, and starting with dry rice seemed like the way to go.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Some rice pudding recipes call for lemon juice to cause the milk to curdle.  I suspect your milk was just spoiled.

 

[chromedome]

18 hours ago, Wholemeal Crank said:

 

So the question:  what made the milk curdle?  Starting with skim instead of whole milk?  Starting with brown rice?  Starting with milk on the edge of spoilage?   

 

Every now and then I do have a craving for rice pudding, and I'd like to do it with brown rice on general principles, and I'd like it to not end in a sad mix of curdled bits of milk and badly cooked rice.  I previously worked on a recipe that starts with cooked rice, so that there is less of an issue with the brown rice--the different water requirement and cooking time are already be accounted for.  But, I wanted to use up milk this time, and starting with dry rice seemed like the way to go.

 

 

Milk that's on the turn is already slightly acidified by the bacteria, and when you heat it you create perfect curdling conditions (essentially, you're starting to make cheese). You're usually better off baking with it than trying to cook it. 

 

[Wholemeal Crank]

That makes sense,  thank you!

[andiesenji]

If you are using brown rice, you should soak it in plain water for at least an hour then drain it well and rinse it thoroughly.

Mix half the sugar with 3/4 of the milk before adding it to the rice and cook it on the plain WHITE rice setting.

Beat the rest of the sugar and the milk with the eggs add a little of the hot rice to this mix to temper it and then add it back into the rice cooker and stir well.  Now restart the rice cooker - still set on white rice and set your timer for 30 minutes.

Check it at 30 minutes - some brown rice (Lundberg) cooks quicker than others.  If still too chewy let it go another 15 minutes.

 

Cooking for too long in a rice cooker, on the stove or in the oven will cause the milk to "break" - unless it has an ingredient to offset that factor (sugar) - some people mix Karo syrup with the milk or even sweetened condensed milk which will absolutely keep it from breaking. (a trick used in some restaurants).  When I was catering I made rice pudding with red colusari rice, which produces a lovely pink result.  It was tricky to work with and I did a lot of trial and error (many errors) before I found the formula.

 

[Wholemeal Crank]

Excellent advice, thank you! 

 

It sounds like I created a setup for trouble by using milk on the edge of spoiling, not adding the sugar, and not presoaking the rice.  I'll try again and report back. 

[Wholemeal Crank]

Damn.  Another try, with fresh milk, and presoaked brown rice, and another curdling--but this time, I got through to the last stages of heating through the mixture after returning the eggs/milk/sugar/seasoning to the cooker, and the rice was still just a little bit chewy after the 30 minutes, and I put it on for another 15 minutes, and whammo, curdled.  That last step is very hard to get right with the cooker.  Maybe finishing in the oven would be better to prevent the overheating at the end?

[andiesenji]

I haven't had that happen.  Maybe you should just try cooking the rice first - at least partially so it doesn't require as long a cooking time.

I use Lundberg brown rice which takes less time to cook that other brown rices (don't ask me why, I have no idea).

 

Ah.  I just went out and went through the motions of putting rice pudding together.  I don't use a recipe, haven't for decades, just wing it.

I add some heavy cream to the milk - I think the higher butterfat content keeps it from breaking.  I had completely forgotten that I do this.  

I recently saw a recipe for "creamy rice pudding" on Facebook or in one of the blogs I visit, that mentioned using milk with some heavy cream added.  

Sorry you had this experience.

[Katie Meadow]

Speaking of milk on the cusp of turning, I experienced that this morning. It doesn't froth up at all with a wand. Not that that has anything to do with rice pudding. The perfect rice pudding eludes me. It's a rare thing. I want it creamy but not too fatty, toothsome but not chewy, rich but not eggy, with a layer of just  creaminess but no rice at the top.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

My rice pudding recipe comes from Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah.  Never fails, always perfect.  My aunt gave this book to me circa 1980.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Dinah Shore credits the recipe to Mr. Gruber, "Food Chief of the Riviera."

 

[Wholemeal Crank]

My next attempt will be with whole milk plus some cream; it's a good excuse to have cream around for other purposes.

[andiesenji]

2 hours ago, Wholemeal Crank said:

My next attempt will be with whole milk plus some cream; it's a good excuse to have cream around for other purposes.

I always keep heavy cream on hand.  I use the "manufacturers cream" from Alta Dena - it is not "ultra-pasteurized" and works better for making cream cheese.  

Currently I have a half gallon on hand.

I use it for baking - my biscuits are simply 1 cup of heavy cream and 2 cups of self-rising flour.

If I want to have scones, I add some vanilla, 3 tablespoons of sugar.  Optional - dried fruits.

[Wholemeal Crank]

Cooling now in the refrigerator.....I got to it about 25 minutes into the 2nd heating session and it was just on the edge of curdling.  Some vigorous stirring and that stopped.  This time I used whole milk with 25% heavy cream.  Based on a check of the rice at the 20 minute mark, I think I will let it set overnight because the rice could use a little longer to soften.

[Wholemeal Crank]

And:  the milk/egg portion of the pudding was very smooth and rich, not too sweet, and the dried sour cherries I soaked separately and added at the end did well with the flavoring of cardamom, vanilla and mahleb.  But the rice was undercooked: edible, but not the soft texture I want.  I was using Lundberg, brown basmati, which I knew would give the nutty background that I wanted, but it will take some precooking.  It will be a while before I try this again but I'm going to stick a page of notes in the cookbook to remind me of the next steps after this go-round.

[Wholemeal Crank]

Better when with precooked rice.  Still need to cook it a bit softer next time--it really doesn't soften at all after milk is added.  But I've now got a reliable recipe to add to my repetoire, thanks all!