Belgian Rice Tart (Rijsttaart)

After my previous post on belgian rice pudding (rijstpap), I thought I should introduce its sibling....the belgian rice tart (or rijsttaart in dutch). I first came across the rice tart when we went to the bakery one morning and out of the many koffiekoeken on display, my eyes rested upon this yellowish little tart. I asked my hubby what that was, and he said matter-of-factly "haven't you eaten this before, it is made of rice".  I took a piece of it, it did taste of rice and milk, the little rice grains were in fact covered in a custard like pudding and the piece I had from the bakery tasted really heavenly. I liked it so much that I was determined to find out the recipe and make it myself. 

I thought to myself...hmmn it shouldn't be too difficult to make this since we always have rice at home. So I searched on the internet and came across this blog by Little Glutton. I was lazy and bought ready made pastry dough for the pie shell. Nevertheless it turned out to be a success. I got my hubby to verify the taste and he gave a nod of approval ! That was many months ago when I baked my very first belgian rice tart. Since then I had baked it many times and I also baked it for my hubby's birthday party. Since it was finished off by the guests, so I reckoned that it must have tasted good and authentic. :)

So here is the recipe adapted from Little Glutton

Belgian Rice Tart (Belgische Rijsttaart)

Ingredients (for making 1 rice tart)

750 ml milk

75g sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

135g rice, rinsed and drained

2 eggs

1 ready-made pastry dough

Method

1. Mix the milk, sugar, vanilla essence, and rice in a non-stick pot and bring to a simmer over medium heat,  stirring occasionally to separate the rice grains. Make sure the milk doesn't boil over. Then lower the heat, cover with a lid and let it simmer gently until the rice is tender and has absorbed most of the milk. (I used stove fire no. 4 for 10 min and I lowered it to no. 3 for about 30 min,  40 min in total) 

2. Remove from heat and leave to cool for a while, before mixing in the eggs, using an electric whisk for 1 min.

3. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin. It should fit a cake pan or pie pan (lined with baking paper) of about 9.5 inches. Put in the dough and using a fork, prick a few times in the dough, before dividing the rice pudding evenly over it.

4. Place it in a preheated oven (180C) for about 25-35 min until the rice tart turns golden brown. Let the rice tart cool before serving.

The last time I baked the rice tart, it was finished so quickly that I hardly had the time to snap a nice picture. But here is a photo which was hastily taken before the last slice was finished off...