I am a member of a large parenting group on Facebook and two common questions are “what calcium rich snack can I give my child instead of their afternoon bottle” and “what healthy desserts can I give that aren’t full of sugar”. I love rice pudding and I wanted to give my kids some but all the ones in supermarkets are loaded with sugar and any recipe I have seen also contains sugar. That called for me making lots of mess and doing lots of tasting in my kitchen (Mr MyMiniMeals is now calling our kitchen “the experimental kitchen” – a la Heston) and – Voila! – I came up with something really rather tasty.
This is my extra yummy, extra easy, extra healthy, sugar free rice pudding recipe that I then went a step further with and made into “cakes” (well you know me – I’m very fond of anything patty or cake shaped!). The rice pudding itself is great for spoon fed babies or older kids, and the rice pudding cakes are ideal for kids who prefer finger food or to take with you as a handy snack when out and about. Little Lady devoured two cakes in about as many minutes and unsurprisingly The Boy decided that, although he does like rice, milk, bananas and the word “pudding” he wasn’t prepared to put either of my fabulous concoctions anywhere near his mouth…….sigh.
60g uncooked pudding rice
1 large banana
400ml milk (or dairy free alternative)
A pinch of cinnammon
A pinch of ground nutmeg
Add the rice, cinnamon and nutmeg to the milk in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer for 25 minutes stirring regularly. Mash the banana very well then add to the rice and milk mixture (the mixture will have thickened as the rice cooks). Stir well and keep on a low heat for another 10 minutes stirring regularly. After this time the rice pudding is ready to serve.
For the cakes let the rice pudding cool then with wet hands form small handfuls into patty shapes and place on a WELL greased baking sheet or non stick baking sheet.
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Cook in the oven at 190 degrees C for 25-30 minutes turning half way. Let them cool down a bit before serving. Can be eaten warm or cold.
The cakes can also be frozen but make sure they aren’t cooked first. Once the cakes have been formed place on a greased baking sheet and put into the freezer for a few hours. Then take out and put into a freezer bag. Take out a few hours before you want to eat them and once thawed just follow the baking instructions above.
This recipe makes about 8 rice pudding cakes or about 4-5 kids portions of rice pudding depending on how much you portion out. Admittedly it does take just over an hour to make but when something is this moreish what’s a few extra minutes here and there!
Hi, just out of interest, please could you let me know why these can’t be frozen once cooked? Thanks
They shouldn’t be frozen cooked as you have already cooled the rice pudding down once to form into cakes then reheated to cook the cakes. If you then froze them cooked and served warm you would need to reheat yet another time. You can only safely reheat something once . You could actually freeze them cooked if you were planning to let them defrost naturally (i.e. Just left out or in the fridge as opposed to defrosting in microwave) and serve them cold but not if you want to serve them warm. Hope that makes sense?