Rijstevlaai - Dutch rice pie

Preparation – 1 hour

Start off by making the dough first, since it needs time to rise properly. Combine flour, yeast and sugar. Heat butter along with the milk until it's lukewarm. This shouldn't be too warm, otherwise, the yeast won't work as well.

Knead the dough for a few minutes, until it's smooth and elastic. Transfer the dough ball to a bowl, cover it with cling film and let it rise on a warm spot for about an hour.

Meanwhile, make the dessert rice. Heat up the milk with a pinch of salt. As soon as the milk is warm, add the rice and stir shortly. Place the lid on the pan and let the rice cook on low heat.

The exact cooking time depends on the type of dessert rice, the one we used needed about half an hour. Let the rice cool off slightly. Coat the pie form with butter and a thin layer of flour.  

Finishing the rijstevlaai – 30 minutes

Dust the work surface and rolling pin with flour and roll out the dough until it's quite thin. Transfer the dough to the form, remove excess dough and press it downwards with your hands.  

Poke holes in the bottom with a fork and let the dough rise for another 15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees celsius or 480 degrees fahrenheit, this type of pie will bake shortly in a very hot oven.

Meanwhile, finish the filling by adding the vanilla sugar. The reason we won't add it to the pan is that otherwise, the rice will burn a lot faster. Mix the egg yolks with 80 grams of sugar until they're fluffy and pale.

Combine with the filling and press the dough downwards again and divide 2/3rd of the filling over the bottom. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and carefully add them to 1/3rd of the filling.

Divide the fluffy filling on top and bake the pie beautiful golden brown in about 10 minutes, depending on your oven. It's best to place the pie on the lowest rack of your oven to prevent it from burning. While the pie is in the oven, make sure you don't open the door, otherwise, the pie will collapse.

Let the pie cool off inside the oven for about 10 minutes with the door slightly opened. After that, let the pie cool off completely.

A rijstevlaai is mainly eaten with whipped cream and chocolate shavings, but we decided we wanted to show you the beautiful golden brown top instead. Enjoy this dutch rijstevlaai!