Rice Cake

This fresh spoon cake is perfect for every period of the year but its origin is bound to a holiday period, specifically to the parish city feast of the “Addobbi” (adornments), in coincidence with Corpus Domini celebrations.

Ingredients (4 servings)

• 1 liter of milk
• 200 g rice
• 200 g candied sugar
• 100 g vanilla sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 3 whole eggs
• 100 g almonds
• 100 g candied citron
• 1 small glass of bitter almond liqueur
• cinnamon
• cloves
• the grated peel of 1 lemon
• a pinch of salt
• optional: 4-6 amaretti (italian almond biscuits)

Preparation

Put on a pot, boil the milk and add the rice, the grated lemon peel, a pinch of salt and the vanilla-flavored sugar. Cook the rice, when cooking is complete the milk should be soaked up almost completely. Pour the mixture into a bowl and let the rice cool down, while the rice is left to stand it will soak up all the milk that was left from the cooking process. In the meantime beat the eggs with the candied sugar (some people, before pouring eggs into the dough, separate the yolk from the white and beat the egg whites until stiff), pour the chopped almonds and the chopped candied citron (if you use amaretti mix them into the dough after crushing them finely), mix well all the ingredients with some of the bitter almond liqueur. Pour the mixture into a baking tin greased with butter and sprinkled with breadcrumbs, the dough should be of a uniform height, of 3-4cm. Bake in pre-heated oven at 180°C for about 20 minutes, then lower the temperature to 150°C, the overall cooking time should be 40-45 minutes. When the surface of the cake forms a golden and crisp crust take the cake out of the oven, let it cool down and then moisten the surface with the remaining liqueur, after having made small holes with a toothpick. Take the cake out of the baking tin and cut it into diamond-shaped pieces.