BUDINO DI RISO or RICE PASTRIES

I have been searching for the recipe for those little rice pastries that you can buy in Italian bars or pasticcerie but as I never found one I have invented a version on my own, It is a kind of hybrid between the real budino di riso and what Italians call torta di riso; the candied fruit and the pin nuts belong to the torta and obviously you can exclude them if you don't like the taste!


BUDINO DI RISO or RICE PASTRIES
4 pieces

Pastry:
50 g/1,75 oz butter
50 ml/0,2 cup sugar
200 ml/0,42 cup flour

Vanilla cream:
150 ml/0,63 cup cream
150 ml/0,63 cup milk
3 egg yolks
3 tblsp maizena
2 tblsp sugar
1 tbs vanilla sugar

Filling:
50 ml/0,2 cup round rice
2 tbs finely chopped candied fruit
2 tbs pine nuts
200 ml/0,85 cup vanilla cream

- Boil the rice.
- Mix all the ingredients (except the vanilla sugar which you add when the cream has cooled down) for the cream in a small pan. Let it simmer slowly until it has thickened, it mustn't boil.
- Put the oven on 200°C/390°F.
- Make the pastry dough and line four small baking-tins.
- Mix the vanilla cream with the candied fruit and the pine nuts and then you mix it with the rice.
- Spoon the rice mix into the pastry shells and put them in the oven for 20-25 minutes.
- Let them cool down before serving.