Recipe

Lemon Cardamom Anisette Budino Di Riso

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by trufflesnyc

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by trufflesnyc

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This recipe was entered in the contest for Your Best Recipe with Cardamom
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trufflesnyc's Notes: I used to live in Florence, Italy, where every morning I looked forward to getting up and going to my favorite pasticceria to have a little budino di riso for breakfast. Budino di riso, or...
I used to live in Florence, Italy, where every morning I looked forward to getting up and going to my favorite pasticceria to have a little budino di riso for breakfast. Budino di riso, or rice pudding, is what everyone in Florence calls it, but it is actually a dense little oval cake with powdered sugar on top, that when still warm from the oven, reveals a deliciously moist rice pudding center. It became such a love of mine that to this day whenever I go to Florence the first thing I must do when I arrive in the city is have a budino di riso.

Missing my little budino, one day I decided to try and make one back here in the U.S. I scoured cookbooks in English and Italian for recipes, even going back to an Italian copy of the famous 19th century cookbook by Artusi, The Science of Cooking and The Art of Eating Well. But the only thing I could find was the popular torta di riso or crostata di riso, which is more of a simple pastry shell with rice pudding in the center. There seemed to be no "official" recipe for this treat.

I turned to the Internet. It seemed my little obsession was also shared by many Italians, for whom the recipe also proved to be just as elusive. This idiosyncratic oval budino seemed to be a lost art, giving way to the fast-paced, flat and round world of the crostata. I found chat rooms of desperate appeals, failed attempts, and heated debate. Getting the cake "crust" right was a quandary, as was the consistency of the rice pudding. Do you cook the rice first and then add the other ingredients? Or do you do it all at once? Do you add pastry cream? There were several schools of thought. And no one could find those little oval molds.

I finally landed on a creative exchange between Evellino (in Turin), Titty (in Naples), Candy (in Pisa) and Evellino's mom in Florence who served as the judge. Here is my take, with meyer lemon, cardamom and anisette replacing the vanilla bean and rum liqueur flavoring found in those recipes. In the best tradition of Italian cooking, where the "official" recipes are passed on from friend to friend, and mother to daughter, I pass this on to you.

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Serves 9

Cake "Crust":

5 tablespoons butter Ask a question about this ingredient

1/3 cup sugar Ask a question about this ingredient

1 1/4 cup flour (Italian 00) Ask a question about this ingredient

2 egg yolks Ask a question about this ingredient

Combine the butter with the sugar, then add the egg yolks and flour. Work into a dough that barely holds together, adding a bit more butter if necessary.
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Wrap in plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
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Rice Pudding :

3 cups milk Ask a question about this ingredient

2/3 cups rice (might as well go all the way and find Italian "originario" short grain rice for this) Ask a question about this ingredient

3/4 cups sugar Ask a question about this ingredient

6 Cardamom pods Ask a question about this ingredient

1 pinch salt Ask a question about this ingredient

2 tablespoons butter Ask a question about this ingredient

2 tablespoons anisette liqueur Ask a question about this ingredient

1 grated meyer (if available) lemon peel Ask a question about this ingredient

1/3 cup flour Ask a question about this ingredient

1 egg Ask a question about this ingredient

1 meyer (if available) lemon peel Ask a question about this ingredient

Cook the rice: Bring 1 1/2 cups of the milk to a boil with the cardamom pods. Add the rice, 1/4 cup of the sugar, butter and salt. Simmer for 30-40 minutes until almost all of the milk is absorbed and the rice is soft but slightly toothy. Take it off the heat, remove the cardamom pods, and add the grated meyer lemon peel and anisette liqueur.
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Make the pasty cream while the rice is cooking. In a separate pan, bring the remaining 1 1/2 cups of milk to a boil with the whole meyer lemon peel, then take it off the heat and let it rest for 10 minutes. Remove the peel. In another bowl, mix the flour, remaining 1/2 cup of sugar, and egg until smooth. Add some warm milk from the pan into the bowl to liquefy it a bit further and mix. Reheat the milk in the pan at a low heat, and while mixing, slowly add the contents of the bowl. Continue to keep it on heat, mixing gently to avoid clumps forming, until it thickens to a cream the consistency of yogurt. Take it off the heat and let cool.
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Add the pastry cream to the rice until well combined. (try not to eat this by itself!)
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Remove the cake crust from the refrigerator. With a rolling pin, roll the dough flat to a thickness of 1-2 mm.
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Take a small muffin pan of 3" diameter. (I found a silicone small rectangular mold that also works well). Line the molds with the cake crust. The dough is delicate to work with so do the best you can, fudge if you need to. It's ok if it's not perfect as it will settle once baking. Once in the mold, puncture the dough with a fork a few times.
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Fill the molds to the top with the rice pudding/cream filling. Bake in the oven at 375 degrees F for 25-35 minutes, or until the cake crust starts to turn golden.
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Remove the molds from the oven. When they have cooled down, remove the "budini" from the molds and serve warm or at room temperature with some powdered sugar sprinkled on top. I try and save mine for the morning after, for breakfast.
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8 Comments on Lemon Cardamom Anisette Budino Di Riso

Eliana60 added about 1 year ago

This looks wonderful. Thank you for your research, and for sharing your version.

trufflesnyc added about 1 year ago

Thank you for everyone's comments! This is my first time submitting a food52 recipe. I wanted to do one close to my heart. It's so nice to hear back from this great community and to feel a part of it :)

aargersi added about 1 year ago

You are off to a GREAT start! Keep posting please!!!!

drbabs added about 1 year ago

Yes, please do!

AntoniaJames added about 1 year ago

You win. ;o)

mrslarkin added about 1 year ago

This sounds incredibley delicious! Love your story, too. Thank you!

testkitchenette added about 1 year ago

Lovely, a budino is much more enticing to me than rice pudding (never could get my taste buds to change and like it).

drbabs added about 1 year ago

Wow, this is amazing on so many levels. First of all, the flavor combinations sound absolutely wonderful. Then there's your persistence in figuring out how to make it. Then there's your wonderful writing. Thank you so much for sharing the fruits of your labor. I look forward to making this.