Coconut and Lime Rice Pudding

This is a super simple recipe but always seems to go down well. I make it with coconut milk instead of milk and really you can just leave it to bubble away itself with the occasional stir. I usually make it with pudding rice but have also done it with risotto rice as I saw someone on TV use Arborio rice with rice pudding and that worked well too.

 

Ingredients

1 cup pudding or risotto rice

Zest of 1 lime

1 tin coconut milk

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

3 tbsp caster sugar (or to taste)

 

Method

1. Put everything into a heavy-based saucepan except for the sugar. Slowly bring to the boil.

2. Stir occasionally until the rice has absorbed all of the milk and is tender. If the liquid is absorbed before the rice is cooked, add a little milk to the pan.

3. When the rice is cooked, stir through the caster sugar and serve. Simple eh?!

 

Tips

Shake the can of coconut milk before opening it as it often separates.

Use low-fat coconut milk if you don't want to use the normal stuff - I only ever use the reduced fat one.

You don't need much sugar at all! The coconut adds a lot of flavour and sweetness to the rice.

Add some orange zest too if you want to add more flavour or some chopped dried apricots as they get really puffed up and juicy. Also, topping with some toasted coconut and serving with fresh fruit makes it more of a dessert and less of a comfort food. There's no judgement if you eat it straight out of the pan though!!

 

Pina Colada Cupcakes

Okay, so on some summery days all you want is to sit in the sun with a yummy cocktail. One of my favourite cocktails has got to be the classic pina colada. For the days when relaxing with the genuine thing isn't possible, these cupcakes make a pretty good alternative!

I started this by using the usual vanilla cupcake recipe that I usually use. Before baking I mixed through some crushed pineapple (about 2-3 tablespoons) to make sure the sponge had a good pineappley flavour. If you don't like fruit in cupcakes then you could leave it out and rely on the icing for the pina colada flavour but I really like fresh fruit in cake and think that it helps to make it a pina colada cupcake, rather than a plain vanilla cake with interesting frosting (not that there's anything wrong with that!). If you want to add some coconut into the cake then that's fine too, although I relied on the covering of coconut on the top of it for my coconut fix. I did however add a few tablespoons of coconut rum into the sponge but again, if you wanted to leave this out there's enough desiccated coconut on the icing to give it the 'colada' feel.

While the pineapple cupcakes were in the oven baking, I set about making the icing. I made the regular vanilla buttercream that I usually do (on a previous post) and added a few tablespoons of Pineapple Sourz liqueur. You can add it to taste but I added a fair amount (probably due to being a student!) to make sure the icing was undoubtedly pineapple. I didn't colour it initially, so left it white so that I could flat ice the cupcakes when cool.

When the cakes were completely cool, I covered them in the pineapple flavoured icing so that they were flat. I usually do this by putting a large 'blob' of icing in the middle of the cake and then use a small spatula to spread it out flat from the centre out by using gentle strokes from the middle of the cake direct to the edge of the cake case. Be sure to get the icing into all the ridges of your cupcake case!

Once the icing was flat on the cakes (don't be too fussy about it, it doesn't need to be perfect because you'll be covering it up anyway), put some desiccated coconut into a shallow dish. Put each cake into the coconut 'head first' so that the coconut sticks to the buttercream. Gently swirl the cakes into it if necessary to make sure that they get a good coconutty covering.

Once the cakes have all been flat iced and coconut-covered, add a few drops of yellow food dye into the remaining buttercream. This isn't necessary but I love the contrast with the white coconut rather than the whole cupcake being white. Fill up a piping bag fitted with a star shaped nozzle and pipe a small swirl onto the top of each cake. I start with the piping bag on the far edge of the cupcake and pipe in an anti-clockwise swirl, narrowing with each time round to make the tip.

I had some jelly beans which came in random flavours (I think they were JellyBelly beans) and picked out the pineapple, coconut and pina colada flavoured ones to use as decorations on the top. They're not essential but I really think they finish the cupcakes off well and look really cute.

I'm sure there are plenty of variations out there of the good old pina colada cupcake but this was my experimental and 'make it up as you go along' version. I just used things that I had to hand to improvise with the recipe but I think it worked out quite well. You'll notice that there's only 9 in the photo from a batch of 12. The three that 'went missing' between finishing off with the jelly beans and taking the picture would suggest that other people thought they were a success too!!

I really hope you try this and it puts a big smile on your face as it did mine :)