Summer Dessert: Rice Pudding, Jasmine Sauce and Speculoos Cookie

Rice pudding, sweet rice, arroz con leche, arroz doce, including dam niao Khao from Thailand: this all refers to the same preparation: cooking rice + milk = creamy rice that can be flavored with spices, egg and/or sweeteners.
It can be very simple, but the variations are many, here´s one.

I transformed a simple dessert in a flavourful one. It has the soft creaminest of the rice , plus a cardamom fragance, with a silky jasmine tea sauce, and the crunchiness of the multi spiced cookie.

In Argentina, the rice pudding is eaten as a homemade dessert and my mom taught me to prepare it.

Sometimes when I smell the aroma of cinnamon, wherever I am, instantly think of rice pudding and want to prepare it.

"Summer" Dessert

Speculoos cookie

Blond sugar 150 g
Unsalted butter  75 g
Pastry flour  250 g
Egg yolk 1
Spices to taste 1 tsp (I used cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice)
Salt pinch

- Mix soft butter with sugar, salt and spices.
- Add egg and mix to incorporate
- Add the flour, mixing until it´s incorporated
- Make thin cookies with the help of a rolling pin, a flour for the counter, to a thick of 1 or 2 mm, really thin

- Cut to the desired shape, I did a round shape to the size of the glass with a small near to a side to rest the spoon there

- Lift the cookie with a spatula and place them in a buttered and floured pan.

- Cook for 8 minutes in oven 180°C. They will cook quickly, keep an eye there!

Rice pudding
Milk 500 g
Common sugar  50 g
Rice 75 g (arborio, carnaroli or similar)
Whole cardamom seeds 4 grounded (½ tsp of ground)

- Heat the milk with ground cardamom
- Add the sugar and rice
- Cook for 20 minutes an hour over low heat stirring to prevent sticking
- Keep cold until ready to prepare de glasses

Jasmine tea sauce
Milk 150 ml
Egg yolks 2
Common sugar 40 g
Green or black jasmine tea 2 tsp

- Heat the milk and add the tea. Let stand for 10 minutes, so it absorbs the flavour
- Mix the egg yolks with sugar, and whip a bit
- Heat the milk again and add to the yolk mixture.
- Carry over low heat stirring constantly until it thickens (it would be at 82°C, like a creme anglaise)
- Pass through a sieve and reserve in the fridge

To serve
- Place the rice in the bottom of a nice glass, cover with 1 centimeter of the sauce
- Put a cookie on the mouth of the glass, and a spoon over the cookie, 

The idea is that the guest breaks the cookie to eat the dessert, so that´s why you need to make a really thin, crispy, cookie, so when eating all together, rice, sauce and cookie, has a dramatic dessert (maybe not dramatic, but a theatrical end of a meal).

You can prepare it like I tell you, or in a different way. Also, you can change flavours if are not your taste, or  just the cookie, or the rice pudding. These alone are all great gifts for our sweet hearts.