Belgian Tarte Au Riz Inspired Rice Cake

The Tarte au riz is a Belgian specialty, that originates from the city of Verviers, in the province of Liège. It's a very old recipe, dating back to the XVII century.

It's a very simple cake to make, as it consists of only two parts: the dough base, and the rice pudding filling.

The authentic Belgian rice cake includes milk for the rice pudding and yeast for the dough. As a personal twist to the recipe, we will be using some almond milk for the pudding and shortcrust dough as a base for the cake. In addition to making the recipe healthier, I also find that homemade shortcrust dough is a lot more tastier and interesting in terms of texture.

If you wish to make the original recipe instead, don't worry, I will give you the instructions for that too :)

So without any further ado, let's get cooking!

1 liter Almond milk

5 oz Round rice

5 oz Sugar

1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

1 cup Flour

1/3 cup Butter

3 eggs (1 for the dough, 1 for the rice pudding, and 1 for the egg wash)

We'll start by preparing the rice pudding:

First, pour the milk and the rice into a pot and boil for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon to prevent the rice from burning to the bottom of the pot.

Add the sugar with the vanilla powder and boil for an additional 20 minutes.

Leave the pudding to cool down, then cover it with cling film and place it in the fridge overnight.

For the base of the cake, as mentioned in the introduction, the original Tarte au riz is made with yeast dough. If you want to go the authentic route, here are the instructions:

• Mix 5 g yeast with 5 g sugar and 60 ml of warm water
• Mix in a separate bowl 3.5 oz of flour and 3 g of salt. Then combine that with the contents of the yeast bowl
• Add 1/4 cup of room temperature butter and mix again
• Shape into a ball and leave to rise in a warm place

However, if you wish to go with a perfectly textured shortcrust base instead, here are the steps to follow:

• Mix the flour and diced room-temperature butter, rubbing them together with your fingers until you obtain a homogeneous mass of crumbles without any dry flour
• Add the egg and mix it into the dough, while paying attention to processing the dough as little as possible
• Shape into a ball, wrap in cling film and chill for 30 minutes in the freezer.

Rub a dice of butter on the inside of a cake tin (mine was 7 inches or 18 cm in diameter), making sure to also cover the sides.

Then, spread out the dough by pushing it with wet fingers, until you have a nice base with an equal thickness all around.

Crack an egg and mix it into the rice pudding.

Pour the rice pudding into the cake tin, and flatten it out.

To get a nice golden top layer, brush with some whisked egg.

Bake for 20 minutes at 392°F.

Remove the cake from the oven and give the top a second egg wash. Put back in the oven and cook for an additional 20 minutes at 392°F.

The Belgian rice cake can be served whether warm or cold.

Enjoy!