Swedish Rice Pudding with Apple Sauce

A few simple ingredients making a delicious thing, the way it should be.

Delicious apples, fancy risotto rice, milk and a pint, yes a pint of tea. oooooh yeaaaah....

I feel like I should explain why my first post is not actually a bake. There are a couple of reasons why. Firstly, as much as I love baking, I love all cooking and eating and looking at food, and thinking about it and reading about it.... which is fine... I think. Secondly, sometimes rice pudding is just what you need when you're trying to revise but then need something to do which means you're not revising. A well deserved (with a stretch of the truth) bowl of rice pudding.

In Sweden, rice pudding comes in a tube. Food from a tube is just brilliant, and they're big on their tube food there... Kalles caviar, gingerbread dough, rice pudding. In Sweden, the name for rice pudding translates as 'rice grain porridge' and can therefore be justifiably eaten for breakfast... or lunch...or dinner, as a snack, any excuse works. My grandad eats it for lunch followed by a sleep... he knows how to live! So might I encourage you to stop working, take a break, make some rice pudding.

This recipe is a bit of a kerfuffle(who knew that was a real word.. kerfuffle), given that you first par boil the rice before straining it and then cook it with the milk, but since we're procrastinating, that's alright. This recipe is less sweet than a lot of recipes but still relatively sweet. The tartness of the apple sauce works very well with sweetness of the rice pudding and the cinnamon makes it beautifully fragrant.

Serves 3 comfortably

Swedish Rice Pudding with Homemade Apple Sauce

Rice Pudding

1 cup risotto rice

2 cups water

1 knob butter

pinch of salt

2 cups milk

1tsp vanilla extract

2 and 1/2 tablespoons of sugar

1 tsp corn flour

cinnamon (in my case, a lot, but it really depends on your tastes!)

Apple sauce

2 cups water

3 cooking apples

2 tablespoons granulated sugar
 

Rice Pudding

1. Put the rice in a saucepan and add the water, the butter and a pinch of salt. Counting from when you turn the heat on, cook for 13 minutes on a medium heat. Remove from the heat and drain in a fine mesh strainer.
2. Return to the saucepan and add the milk, another pinch of salt and the vanilla extract and cook for a further 13 minutes. And mix it, nurture it, love it, otherwise it’ll stick. If it starts to get too sticky or dry before the end of cooking time, then add a little more milk.
3. Towards the end of the cooking time, about 12 minutes in, add a tsp of sifted corn flour, which will just slightly help to thicken it. Give it a taste, since you may not think it needs anymore salt, personally I think just a small pinch more really brings out the flavour. Then add the 2 1/2 tablespoons of sugar, or to taste. It does make it relatively sweet but the tartness of the apple sauce works well with it.
4. Put in a bowl, cup or mug and add the apple sauce and sprinkle with cinnamon. Pour on a little milk and enjoy with a bit of bbc iplayer and a pint of tea. 
5.  

Apple Sauce

1. Chop the apples into cubes. You can remove the skins, but the thing with apple skins is that they’re mind over matter, if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
2. Add to a saucepan and cover with water and add the sugar.
3. Cook for five minutes, or until a sharp knife inserted into an apple piece goes in with ease. If in doubt, remove a piece of apple and squish it! If it squishes with ease, then it's ready, then…
4. MASH
5. Ladle lavishly on rice pudding, or straight from the saucepan into your mouth! 

Christa x