I found my little bundle of joy birth the perfect opportunity to share with you the perfect Lebanese Caraway rice pudding recipe that we traditional prepare on the birth of a new baby in our Lebanese traditions.Healthy, vegan, gluten free and very delicious easy treat for you and your guests.
Servings 8bowls
Prep Time 15 minutesmins
Cook Time 1 hourhr
soaking time: 30 minutesmins
Ingredients
For the flavored water:
1cupwater
2 -3leavesof geraniumعطرة
2-3piecesstar anise
1tsp.anise seeds
For the pudding:
1cuprice flour
7cupswater
1cupthe flavored water
1tbspcaraway powder
1tbspcinnamon powder
2 ¼cupbrown granulated sugaryou can use white granulated sugar also
For the garnish:
Choice of nuts: pistachio, walnuts, almonds, pine nuts
Shredded coconut
Raisins
Edible rosesoptional
Instructions
For the flavored water:
Start this step before hand so the water has enough time to get cold before using. Just add the water with the anise seeds, star anise and the geranium leaves and bring to boil, lower heat, and let it simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave it covered to steam until cold. You can prepare this step the night before.
For the rice pudding:
In the cooking pot, on cold before putting on any heat. Mix all the ingredients: rice flour, water, caraway powder, cinnamon powder and sugar and whisk it all together on cold till everything is dissolved. Add the flavored water after you drain and mix all together. And let it soak for 30 minutes (you can soak for more if you have time)
Put on medium heat and keep stirring. The most important thing is to keep stirring. This is the essential step for a smooth pudding beside the right rice flour/water ratio. Keep stirring continuously until it starts to boil. After boiling keep stirring the mixture for 20-30 minutes. you will notice that the pudding is getting thick, don’t worry this is normal.
Turn off the heat, prepare your serving bowls and pour in each bowl some of the pudding while warm before it gets very hard and sticky to pour. Shake the bowl a little bit after pouring to have a smooth top. Let it rest for 15 minutes on the kitchen countertop, before storing in the fridge until serving.
Before serving sprinkle the shredded coconut on top and garnish with nuts and raisins and enjoy!
Notes
You can totally skip the flavored water, but it adds so much to the final pudding. If you want to skip, make sure you keep the water / rice flour ratio: 8 cups of water for 1 cup of rice flour. You can 1 tbsp of anise powder with the rice flour mixture if you want to skip the flavored water it also helps.
When you want to double the quantity make sure you add the stirring time also after boiling, the bigger the quantity is the more time of stirring it needs after boiling. Add 10 minutes each time you double. so, if you want to do this recipe X 2, you need to add extra 10 min of stirring after boiling. You did 3x this recipe you will add 20 minutes and so on.
For the garnish you can mix and match like you like you don’t have to add all the nuts that I added and you can adjust to your liking, just keep in mind that don’t garnish and store in fridge , garnish just before serving.
The pudding stays in the fridge for a good week, to store it better you can cover with some cling film to keep the top from drying off.
Check out “the secrets to great pudding” highlighted up in the article if you had nay issues with the texture or constancy if the mixture so you know what did you do wrong and fix it .