Tags

, , , , , , ,

It’s a bit of a different Handmade Monday from me this week – the making has mainly consisted of bees and ladybirds as I plough through my long list of orders! So I thought I’d share this recipe for Orange Rice Cake (Torta di Riso al Profumo d’Arancio) which I have been meaning to make for a long time, ever since I saw the recipe in the cookery book accompanying the BBC2 series Two Greedy Italians Eat Italy.

When you read the recipe and instructions you will maybe (as I did) expect a heavy, stodgy, but delicious cake. The results however are competely the opposite, apart from the delicious bit, and the cake is light and almost fluffy. I would urge you to give it a go.

Orange Rice Cake

1.7 litres milk
1 vanilla pod
rind of half a lemon
200g sugar
300g arborio rice (I used short grain)
5 large eggs, separated
50ml orange liqueur
40g raisins (I used much more than this as it didn’t look enough, just kept adding until it looked right!)
grated zest of 1 orange, plus extra for serving

  1. Preheat oven to 180deg/Gas 4. Grease and line a loose bottomed 24cm cake tin
  2. Place the milk, vanilla pod, sugar and rice into a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer on a medium to low heat for about 20-25 mins until the rice is almost cooked and has absorbed the milk, but still has a creamy consistency. Remove from heat and allow to cool.IMG_6727
  3. In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks and liqueur until creamy.IMG_6731
  4. In another bowl whisk the egg whites until stiff.IMG_6729
  5. Add the egg yolk mixture to the cooled rice (make sure it is cool enough not to scramble the eggs, I left mine in a cold place for half an hour). Then fold in the stiffened egg whites.IMG_6732
  6. Fold in the raisins and orange zest.IMG_6730
  7. Pour into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 1 hour. After about half an hour check the top is not too brown and cover with foil if necessary.IMG_6734
    IMG_6737
  8. Serve warm or cold, sprinkled with icing sugar and extra orange zest to finish.March 13

I think this would also be delicious made with Limoncello liqueur or simply fresh orange juice. I am also going to try soaking the raisins in some of the liqueur before adding them to the mix.

I’m off over to Handmade Harbour now to link up this post with the other lovely blogs there. If you give this recipe a try, please let me know how you get on and what you think of it. See you next week.