Vanilla and Cardamom Rice Pudding
Rice puddings infused with vanilla, cardamom and topped with mango
Its time again for the Royal Foodie Joust. I've been participating in these for the last few months and I thoroughly enjoy them. You can read all about the joust here. The winner of last month's Joust, Michelle chose her three ingredients for the challenge. She opted for cardamom, brown sugar and mangoes. A very "exotic" combination! As usual, I stewed about what I was going to cook and only decided once the activities for Greek Easter had quietened down.
In the end I opted for individual rice puddings. Rice puddings are pretty much a staple in a lot of cultures. The Greek version, a.k.a. "rizogalo" uses cinnamon as the topping and is highly addictive. The Spanish have their version, known as arroz con leche, enriched with condensed milk. I love rice pudding and I wanted to somehow combine the Joust ingredients in one. After a bit of "research" I found a recipe that had featured over 7 years ago in a local newspaper and it utilised all of the Joust items. A bit of tweaking by moi and my version of the rice pudding was born.
Leave it infuse for at least two hours...
The original recipe called for regular full fat milk. I changed that and used a combination of coconut milk and water. Instead of using cardamom powder I crushed a few pods for a milder flavour. Overall, it was delicious but a little too rich for my liking. Its quite easy overall and once you mix all your ingredients you just "set it and forget it". For a couple of hours anyway. The final touch is to top it with freshly sliced mangoes and a brown sugar caramel! Its not for the diet conscious!
RECIPE FOR VANILLA AND CARDAMOM RICE PUDDING
* 1 cup of arborio rice
2 cups of coconut milk
2 cups of water
* 1 vanilla bean, split in half
* 1/3 cup brown rice syrup or sugar
* pinch of sea salt
* 3-4 cardamom pods, crushed
sliced mangoes
banana leaf for decoration
For the brown sugar caramel blend 2 tbsps of brown sugar with a knob of butter over a medium heat. Allow it all to melt and serve immediately.
Mix all the ingredients (except the mangoes and banana leaf) in a non reactive pot. Allow the mixture to come to a boil and then leave it on the lowest possible heat for about 2 hours. Stir it occasionally. We're looking at a gentle infusion of flavours. Most of the liquid should be absorbed and the mixture should resemble a very cooked risotto. Allow it to cool slightly and place in individual moulds. Turn out onto a plate that has been decorated with cut banana leaves. Top with sliced mango and drizzle with brown sugar caramel.
Sponge Cake
The ingredients...the batter...the finished sponge
Just before I start this post let me say a big thank you to all the readers who have joined me here recently. I appreciate all your comments and I sincerely thank you all. I was having trouble leaving replies due to an issue with the commenting system. All is fine now and I will try to respond if I can in future posts. Again a big thank you and I hope you keep on enjoying my pictures.
I promised I would use the passionfruit curd I made recently in another dish. After racking my brains out I decided to challenge myself by making a sponge cake. And a challenge it certainly was. Making this was almost like following a carefully guarded experiment. All the elements need to work together harmoniously otherwise it can be quite disastrous. Everyone has a "secret" or "hint" that makes a sponge cake so light and airy. Mine turned out fine, however it did crack slightly. It adds to to the "home madeness" I suppose. Once the cake had been cooked and it had cooled I cut it in half and filled it with freshly whipped cream and that delightful passionfruit curd. It was light and every bite had cream and curd in it. The final touch was to dust it with some icing sugar.
TIPS AND TRICKS FOR THE PERFECT SPONGE
- Make sure you eggs are at room temperature
- The flours need to be sifted at least three times! Well I cheated on this step and bought triple sifted flour
- Folding the flours into the batter requires the use of a large metal spoon.
- No overbeating
- Patience...especially about opening the oven door to "check". This was hard for me!
SPONGE CAKE RECIPE
This comes with a pre warning. Just remember that every bit of this recipe was followed and tested however bear in mind that every oven has its own personality!
- 1/3 cup (50g) cornflour
- 1/3 cup (50g) plain flour
- 1/3 cup (50g) self-raising flour
- 4 x 60g eggs, at room temperature
- 2/3 cup (150g) caster sugar
- Grease a 20cm cake tin with real butter. Line the bottom of it with some baking paper.
- Preheat your oven to 180 deg C
- Beat the eggs and caster sugar using a mixer. Beat them until they triple in volume. We are after thick and pale looking mixture at this point.
- Take a large metal spoon and gradually mix in the pre sifted flours.
- Mix the flours until just combined.
- Place batter in cake tin and place it in the oven.
- Leave for 20-30 mins depending on your ovens personality.
- The cake will be ready when it has shrunk away from the sides, a skewer inserted comes out clean and it springs back when touched on top.
- Leave the cake to cool in the tin for about 5 mins and then turn it out on a wire rack to cool.
- Once cake has cooled slice it in half and fill with whipped cream and the delightful passionfruit curd.
- Dust with icing sugar.
Cherry Season
Cherries are abundant this time of the year
Hope everyone had a few busy days. I did. I had problems with my blog and couldn't get out my Xmas wishes to everyone. That's modern technology for ya. Anyway, it's all been sorted out and I can write about one of my favourite fruits. Cherries. They are everywhere this time of the year here in Australia. Juicy, dark red and full of flavoursome goodness. It's funny because as a child I had never tried one of these beauties fresh. They were either "glace" in some hideous dessert or deep in maraschino liquer. The first time I tried one I was hooked. I served them the other day as a sweet treat after lunch. Simply dipped in a good couverture dark chocolate and cooled in the fridge. Better than strawberries any day.
I had a few spare after xmas lunch the other day and was wandering how to use them. I scanned my trusty cookbook collection and found a recipe for poached cherries. Very easy and delicious. It's basically 500g of cherries with their stones removed, 1/2 a cup of sugar, the juice of one lemon and a dash of your favourite liquer or port all left to simmer on a low heat in sauce pan for 10 mins. This allows the cherries to soften and release all their wonderful juices. Once the poached cherries had cooled, I put the next part of my plan into action. I grabbed some left over Pandoro (that famous Italian xmas cake) and sliced it thickly. I then toasted it and placed the poached cherries on top. The final touch was to use some left over mascarpone. A good dollop of that and I had a quick and easy dessert.
Try this...you won't be disappointed
This was a real winner and a perfect way to use up leftovers. By the way, best wishes to all this holiday season.
Pete
Ice Ice Baby
When I last hosted Biteclub, I ended the evening with this wonderful dessert. I was too fussed to go about making sexy desserts for 13 people, so I settled on this little beauty. Its a perfect ending to a sweltering, sultry, Sydney evening. Lemonade and passionfruit icy poles. Or ice blocks to our American counterparts. The recipe for this comes form Gourmet Traveller. For all those who don't know, Gourmet Traveller is an Australian food magazine which comes out monthly. It is stylish, glossy and it really knows its food. They even have a masterclass section for all budding chef wannabe's.
This recipe requires to be completed in two stages. Firstly purchase about ten passionfruit. Halve them and scoop out their seedy innards. Place this pulp into a food processor. Pour the processed mixture through a fine sieve leaving behind the seeds. To this add sugar syrup to taste. (Sugar syrup is made by heating one part water to three parts caster sugar in a pot. Just let it heat. Do not boil! Remove, stir, check to see that it is all dissolved and let it cool.) Be wary of adding too much sugar syrup. We don't want to be on our dentists hit list!! Anyway...squeeze a half cut lime and add a splash of vanilla extract. Stir and taste. It is very tempting to continue tasting here. This mixture is divine. Leave some for the icy pole moulds!!!
I picked up some icy pole moulds form K Mart for a few dollars. Now, for the lemonade portion of this recipe I used a "homestyle" lemonade. Not that clear sugary water they try to pass off as lemonade. You may wish to use Bitter Lemon here instead. Pour the lemonade filling about one third of the mould. Let it rest for half an hour. Place in the freezer. About 2-3 hours later, the lemonade should be nearly set but not hard. Now add the passionfruit mixture on top of the semi frozen lemonade. Seal it with the end of ice block mould. This has the stick which will allow you to hold and eat the icy pole. Leave it overnight in the freezer and enjoy slurping this beauty.
Pete