Tuesdays with Dorie: Arborio Rice Pudding

A brief treatise on topic: "Why my TWD posts are always late."

Tuesdays are just bad for me. They are typically the longest day of my week, and the Monday nights that precede them are late ones as well. My free time opens out more around Wednesday night, and that, friends, is why so many of my TWD posts are late or very very early. If I was more coordinated, I would just do a bunch ahead and time them to go out on the right day. Yeah. That might happen.

As it happened, I did make the TWD assignment for yesterday last night, but because of its chilling needs, I won't be photographing it until tonight.

TWD made Arborio Rice Pudding, and I learned from reading the commentary that this is a real cake crowd. Very few true pudding lovers. I am a complete and total pudding junkie, and the creamy section of Baking is one of my favorite components of the book. Too many baking books ignore the whole area, but clearly it is near to Dorie's heart.

One of the best parts about TWD is the chance for interaction with Dorie Greenspan herself, who very kindly checks in every now and again with advice or updates or, in this case, error notes. (I hope this works out for her, too. We may be critical sometimes, but hopefully are a very good system for vetting the book and finding typos, etc...) In the case of the Arborio rice pudding, milk and rice and sugar simmer on the stovetop. The book says the pudding will need about 35 minute to thicken. This is wrong, and Dorie corrected it, saying the real time was closer to 55 minutes. I simmered mine for about an hour, on a very low heat, and it seemed appropriately thickened when I spooned it into servings to chill. Updates to follow, on taste testing.

Update, 11.20.08: I haven't been that anxious to eat it, because it suddenly got freezing here in Brooklyn, and eating cold creamy things just really lost its appeal. However, I finally sampled a cup today, and it's pretty good. Like rice in a very creamy cream sauce--the rice keeps its integrity and the pudding keeps its own. Nice. I think I like baked custards (flan, cup custard, bread pudding) a little more. I just love eggs.