Yum Yum Rice Pudding!

Sorry for the late posting on this one, but the day got away from me yesterday and I didn't get my post up. We did, however, have a wonderful dish of rice pudding for dessert last night courtesy of The Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer. This cookbook is one of my "antique" collection and was published in 1943. It is the seventh edition of the cookbook and one of my favorites. Here is a link the current version of the book (which may or may not have this recipe in it!) on Amazon.com


This recipe is from page 518 in this edition of the cookbook and is simply titled Rice Pudding. At the end of the recipe is an alternate version which uses peaches or pears and since I happened to have thawed some of the Fredericksburg peaches that we put up last summer, I decided to follow those directions and add the peaches at the end. Here is the original recipe.


The Recipe

Rice Pudding

• 1 cup cooked rice
• 2 cups milk
• 1 or 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Scald milk with rice. Beat egg yolks with sugar. Add hot mixture slowly. Cook in double boiler until thick and fold in egg whites, beaten stiff. Flavor with 1/2 tsp vanilla or grated rind and juice of 1/2 lemon. Or reserve egg whites, beat with 2 tbsp powdered sugar and 1/2 tsp lemon extract or vanilla and spread over pudding in baking dish: bake in moderate oven (350F) . Serves 4 to 6.

Pear or Peach Condé . Omit egg whites. Mound on serving dish. Cook canned peach or pear halves in their own syrup (sweetened to taste) until soft and arrange around rice. Sprinkle with finely chopped ginger. Serve hot.

My results:

I decided right away to double the recipe as I had 2 cups of leftover rice to use and as I mentioned also decided to follow the directions for the Peach Condé, so I decided to use a total of three eggs, separated since I was unsure whether to use 1 or 2 as called for. Here are the assembled ingredients, minus the peaches and ginger which I didn't decide to add until after taking the photo!



Mike separated the eggs and mixed them with the sugar for me (thanks honey!) while I scalded the milk and rice. For anyone who's never scalded milk before, the best description I can give you is that scalding is complete just before the milk comes to a boil. It becomes bubbly and a little thicker around the edges of the pan. When scalding milk be sure to stir frequently so it doesn't burn on the bottom of the pan!

One thing I noticed quickly is that the recipe does not specify when/where to add the salt in the process. I decided to add it to the sugar and yolks before adding the hot liquid, but you may decide to add it to the milk while it heats. Either way, make sure to add it at some point as the salt enhances the sweet flavors of the pudding and shouldn't be omitted.

After scalding, you'll want to add the hot mixture SLOWLY to the beaten yolks and sugar. It helps to have an assistant for this and I was blessed to have my best sous chef on hand, my husband Mike :) He slowly poured the hot milk mixture into the pan while I whisked the yolk/sugar/salt mixture. This keeps the yolks from scrambling (who wants scrambled egg in their pudding!) and allows the sugar to melt throughly.

Next I set the metal bowl on top of a simmer pan of water to act as a double boiler and began slowly stirring the mixture until it thickened. This is purely a judgment call, but I stopped cooking the pudding after about 20 minutes when it seemed to be pretty thick. It was still a little soupy while hot but after cooling thickened just right. This is the point at which I added the vanilla. You'll notice in the photo of my ingredients that my vanilla looks a lot like a vodka bottle...and you'd be right! I make my own vanilla using vodka and vanilla beans. This is the best vanilla and quite a bit cheaper than the extract you can buy in the grocery. Here is the photo of the finished pudding before serving:



You'll notice the peaches that I just reheated briefly in the microwave. The recipe doesn't specify, but I chose to use candied ginger instead of fresh for the topping. This was a great addition! Here is the bowl that was all ready to be eaten:



This was a very very good pudding! Hubby liked the pudding with and without the peaches, with and without the ginger and my daughter loved the pudding as I was sure she would. I refrigerated the leftovers and it set up very well when chilled and was just like I expect a good cold rice pudding to be. I'm sure this would also be great with some grated nutmeg on top, a spoonful of nice preserves, other fruit, etc. It is a great basic rice pudding and one I hope you'll try. Enjoy and be sure to check back later this evening when I'll post today's recipe for a nice tea sandwich filling!

Zwieback

Ok, so the zwieback is now finished and we're on to the banana tea bread. Zwieback takes a good long while to make since it requires two separate rising times, so plan ahead. Most of the time is in the rising, so it's hand-off, but it will take the better part of a day to do. This recipe, as well as the Banana Tea Bread that I'll post shortly, are both from the book Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking: A Mennonite Community Cookbook by Mary Emma Showalter. Here's a link to the book on Amazon if you're interested:




The Recipe:

Zwieback

2 cups scalded milk

1 cup shortening

1 cup warm water

2 eggs (optional)

2 tsp sugar

1 yeast cake

2 tsp salt

8-10 cups sifted flour

4 tbsp sugar

Scald milk, add shortening, salt and 4 tbsp sugar.

Crumble yeast in a small bowl, add 2 tsp sugar and 1 cup lukewarm water. Set in a warm place until spongy.

Add yeast mixture and beaten eggs to lukewarm milk.

Mix well and stir in flour gradually.

Knead dough until very soft and smooth.

Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in bulk.

Pinch off small balls of dough the size of a small egg.

Place these 1 inch apart on a greased pan.

Put a similar ball, but slightly smaller, on top of bottom ball.

Press down with thumb.

Let rise until double in bulk (about 1 hour).

Bake at 400-425F for 15-20 minutes.

Yields approximately 4 dozen.


Mrs. J. J. Voth, North Newton, Kan.
Mrs. Dietrich Warkentin, Mountain Lake, Minn.

My Results:

First off, let me say that I've never made Zwieback before, but I have purchased it in the store and this didn't come out anything like that...I think because it did not have the final "toasting" directions in the recipe. I will be slicing and slowly drying these "rolls" to make them into zwieback toasts. Recipes elsewhere direct you to slice them and then bake them in a low oven (200F) for 15 minutes or until dried out and crisp, so that is what I will do.

I did make a couple of substitutions in ingredients. I don't use cake yeast so I substituted instant yeast instead using 2 tsp of instant yeast for the cake called for. I also used a combination of white and wheat flours since I am trying to include more whole grains in our family diet so instead of the 8-10 cups of flour called for, I ended up using 3 cups whole wheat flour and about 5 2/3 cups white flour. I say "about" because your results may vary depending on the humidity in your home, time of year, phase of the moon, what-have-you so this is an approximation.


Here is a picture of the gathered ingredients (minus the eggs which I did decide to use at the last minute):



And for anyone wondering what the "sponge" stage of the yeast looks like:




Now, I scalded the milk on the stovetop and then mixed it with the shortening, sugar and salt in my handy dandy KitchenAid mixer, which I absolutely love...



My mixer is a 5 quart capacity Artisan and it could NOT handle this amount of dough, although it did well with the dough hook until the last cup and a half of flour or so was added and it started to climb the hook. At that point I removed it from the mixer and kneaded in the remaining flour by hand. Here is a picture of the dough after it has been kneaded and is ready for it's first rest:



And here it is at the end of that first rest period, before dividing into the individual rolls:



Now, because it said that it makes about 4 dozen, I decided to divide the monster dough ball into quarters and bake 1 dozen on each cookie sheet instead of guessing on sizes. I also did not do the one ball on top of another as instructed because I am a bad guesser on egg size :) So I just went with 1/12 of each dough quarter and baked as is, pressing down the dough with my thumb after placing on the cookie sheet. Here they are just before going into the oven:




And here is a photo of the final result, fresh from the oven:



As I mentioned, I will be slicing these "rolls" and drying them in the oven for my little E to munch on. I did eat one of the rolls and they are pretty good. Taste like a light wheat bread roll with just a hint of sweetness. I think E will probably enjoy munching on them and I will enjoy the fact that they aren't full of hard to pronounce ingredients or lots of salt and sugar!


If you decide to give this one a go, please let me know how it turns out for you! Now on to the banana bread!