This week’s French Fridays with Dorie is a very Fall recipe – Rice Pudding with Caramel Apples. Like so many of the French Fridays recipes, I made a half recipe here and that worked quite well for two fairly generous portions.
Here’s the thing though – while I loved the rice pudding (Oh! and I added 1/ tsp powdered ginger) and used my new IFBC vanilla, I was not super-super in love with the caramel apples. My caramel sauce actually seemed perfect until I added the apple cider. Then, it looked way too liquid-y. And yeah, I remembered to halve that part. So, I’m not quite sure what my problem was or what I did. It still tasted good, though.
I will probably make this pudding again (and jwa really liked it). Although, I think next time, I’ll just start cooking the arborio rice right in the milk — especially since I used 2%. It seems like it might have benefited from a little extra starchy creaminess if there’s a bit less fat.
Here’s a link to Dorie’s recipe at Epicurious. Give it a try and see what you think! Anyway, a few photos below and a link to everyone’s posts here.
Wasn’t this good? So cool you used your new vanilla!
Susan: Yeah, I liked the pudding a lot. And I think I maybe messed up something with the caramel, but it still all really worked together! 🙂
Those are some great tips for thickening up the pudding. If Arborio starches up with regular water/broth for risottos, it can definitely handle 2% milk. 🙂
Very happy to meet you during the conference.
Well, it looks great, even if you don’t think it came out quite as it was supposed to.
My caramel sauce was a mess…I ended up taking the apples out and boiling it till it thickened and caramelized. In the end, it all worked out…whew. It was great meeting you, Michelle!
Oh boy, new vanilla! Was that a gift from the conference? So cool many of you could meet up in Real Life! 😉
I’m kinda with you on the caramel sauce — quite thin. I think it is the cider’s fault. 🙂
Hi Michelle, it was great to meet you at IFBC! This was my first rice pudding and we enjoyed it quite a bit. My sauce was beautiful until i added the apples! As the apples cooked and released some liquid my caramel sauce became thin. I cooked it longer than the 5 minutes but it was still fairly thin. I’m curious what it will be like after being refrigerated!
I’m not a rice pudding fan and yours look very appetizing. I love the idea of a little ginger.
I used 1% milk and it thickened up just fine, even cooking the rice first. I wish I’d thought to use my new vanilla. I walked right past the new bottle on the counter as I went to the pantry for the old bottle. Oh, well. I enjoyed meeting you in Seattle!
I agree with you on the apples. I cooked mine for much longer than called for to try to simmer the sauce down, but it still wasn’t very caramely. But I notice some others got better color on their apples so maybe my pan just wasn’t hot enough to begin with.
I agree with you on when to add the rice and the amount of liquid in the sauce!
Like the presentation in a glass.
Yes, the pudding was good, but the apples were delicious. Mine was a little loose but it made for a good sauce.
I wish I had left my peels on my apples too! Your’s look delightfully cherry and juicy! The pudding was pretty good!
Great post and your photos are really fabulous. I needed a bit more color on my apples too and am not sure how I missed this, but at least we enjoyed the flavor. I was a rice pudding fan to start with so no huge surprise here. It was utterly wonderful to meet you at the IFBC and I look forward to reading of all your related posts !!
I finally got around to making this pudding recently and have been reading everyone’s posts on it. I enjoyed both the pudding and the caramel apples, but my caramel was a little thin, too, when I added the apple cider. Of course, I don’t think I’ll mind trying again to see if I can get it right.