Dessert Recipe: Chai spiced rice pudding pie
Dessert Recipe: Chai spiced rice pudding pie
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For our recent Walpole to Denmark walk on the Bibbulmun Track Simon and I did all the catering. We often hire someone to cook the evening meal but our caterer wasn’t available so we got to exercise our cooking muscles as well as our thighs – we’re so fit right now!
One of the stand-out desserts from the week was a chai-spiced rice pudding pie from Isa Moskowitz and Terry Romero’s book ‘Vegan pie in the sky: 75 out-of-this-world recipes for pies, tarts, cobblers and more‘. It’s easy to make and you can prepare it a day in advance and keep it covered in the fridge until you’re ready to serve.
I’m sure there are many variations you could make by adding different spices and/or other dried fruits (apricot and cardamom would be pretty good I think). Let me know if you make it and send us a photo so we can make this post look less boring!
For the pie crust:
1 packet of ginger-nut biscuits, crushed to fine crumbs in a food processor/blender
Abt 4 Tbs oil or butter (I used melted coconut oil)
Mix together and press into a pie dish (or a springform cake tin). The original recipe says to bake the crust for 10 minutes but I neglected to read that bit and I just stuck it in the fridge while I prepared the rice.
For the rice filling:
2.5 cups plain almond/rice milk (cow’s milk would be fine)
1 400 mL can coconut milk
1 cup uncooked jasmine/basmati rice, rinsed
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (depending how sweet you like it – I used about 1/2 cup)
1 tsp salt
4 chai tea bags
1 cinnamon stick
2 Tbs corn flour
1/3 cup sultanas or raisins
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbs lemon juice
Combine 2 cups of the almond milk, the coconut milk, rice, sugar,and salt in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat.
Add the cinnamon stick and tea bags (I ripped off the tags and threw them in) and simmer uncovered for about 30 minutes, or until the rice is mostly tender, stirring occasionally. Stir gently and make sure that the mixture isn’t wildly bubbling, or a tea bag may rip. If that does happen, it’s not too big of a deal, just gently remove the bag.
When the rice is mostly tender, remove the cinnamon stick and tea bags, squeezing them out into the rice mixture so you get all the chai flavour. In a measuring cup, mix together the remaining½ cup of almond milk and the corn flour, until smooth. Stream the almond milk mixture into the rice pudding, stirring while you pour.
Mix in the sultanas/raisins and cook for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. The rice should be very tender now, but if not, cook it for a few more minutes.
Turn off the heat and mix in the vanilla extract and lemon juice.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pie plate and let cool on the bench until it stops steaming. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours until fully set (you can refrigerate overnight like I did).
For the topping:
The original recipe said to sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top of the pie but I was worried about the crunchiness of my rice (I cooked it for much longer than the 40 minutes and it was still al dente) so I decided to make a crunchy topping to disguise my crunchy rice and make the pie look a bit more special.
I put a small handful each of slivered almonds and walnut pieces into a pan and toasted them until they were brownish and smelled lovely, then I added some sugar to the pan and stirred the nuts for a minute or two which made them nice and sweet and crunchy. I took the nuts off the heat and sprinkled them with cinnamon. Let them cool, then throw them on top of the pie before serving.
