This is a genius cake. A Chocolate leftover rice cake. Have you ever heard of that? This is a lovely fudgy chocolate cake that just happens to use up your leftover rice. Bonus!
How do you bake rice into a chocolate cake?
I dreamt it up one day. I was making the well loved and famed orange and almond cake. The one with boiled oranges and I forgot to buy the oranges! After I swore a bit I decided to replace the oranges with leftover rice. And, this cake was born.
The cake is made with lovely dark cocoa. That’s what gives it its deep flavour. When using rice for this recipe, I used steamed rice. This is probably drier than boiled leftover rice. If you have boiled rice it will be easier to puree but it might be just a bit wetter than steamed rice. You may need to add an extra 1/4 cup (25gm) almond meal (flour). Basmati rice is a bit dry for use in this recipe
I love rice, I try not to eat too much of it at home in Australia….where I am carb-conscious …. but there are certain places in the world that you would not dream of skipping it. Italy for example……..or when in Asia it just feels right, breakfast lunch and dinner.
Times when rice is king!
There were times when I was in the Cambodian jungle that I prayed I could be eating rice. The jungle is green and dense and full crawling, flying, jumping creatures. If the bugs don’t get you the almost 100% humidity will. You feel tired just putting one foot in front of the other. While you are swatting mosquitoes and sweating, you can only dream of sitting in the shade and eating some fluffy rice.
The Elephant Valley Project is in Mondulkiri, a northern province in Cambodia. Here, a motley crew of Elephants are living a well deserved life of luxury. After surviving lives of incredible work loads farming and lifting and sometimes being used to carry tourists in painful heavy baskets, they are resting. Some have been tortured and beaten but now spend their days foraging in the jungle, safe and protected. Elephants eat a lot and did you know they are vegetarians? Here they wander the forest uprooting trees and foraging for juicy bits of greenery and sometimes they feel the need to raid local farms that have delicious crops growing, causing all kinds of trouble.
Here at the EVP in Cambodia, they are regularly offered Banana palms as a morning treat. These need to be hacked into large chunks before they are shared amongst the herd. They grow on hilly slopes in the sun while the Elephants like to wait in the shade down by the river. I did say banana palms, the whole tree, yes. Going down a slope generally means you have to go back up. It is incredibly tiring and slow work. Food here tastes extra amazing for humans that have been feeding elephants!
Elephant Pretzels
There were days that we joked about the lunch hooter going off………We PRAYED for the lunch hooter.
Some times I include a layer of salted caramel. This is super delicious too. If you want to do that you can get a recipe here (it makes a takeaway container, keep the leftover in the fridge to use it on other things).
Watch the video to see how easy it is
Chocolate Leftover Rice Cake- Gluten Free
Ingredients
- 250 gm cooked rice nice and moist
- 250 gm caster sugar
- 1 Tablespoon golden syrup
- 6 whole eggs extra large or 70 gm
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 200 gm almond meal
- 50 gm cocoa just under 1/2 cup
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
Chocolate Frosting
- 150 gm dark chocolate chopped or buttons
- 150 ml cream heavy or thickened
Instructions
- You will need 20 cm ( 9") cake tin. I like to use a springform tin if possible. This mixture can also be made into cupcakes and set the oven at 180C (350 F) deg for 15-20 minutes.
- Put the rice and sugar into the food processor and buzz till smooth. This will take just a few minutes. It needs to be quite smooth
- Add the eggs, vanilla, almond meal, cocoa powder and baking powder .
- Puree till combined.
- Pour into a 20 cm ( 9") cake tin or cupcake papers 3/4 full. Bake at 180 C(350 F) deg for 15-20 minutes for cupcakes and 40-45 minutes for a 23 cm. A skewer should come out clean when the cake is tested.
- Let the cake sit on a rack for a few minutes before turning out and cooling completely
- Heat the cream in a jug or a sauce pan till warm but not boiling. Take off the heat and add the chocolate . Stir till melted. Cool . Beat in an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Pipe or spread onto the cakes.
- I spread a layer of salted caramel on the cake before ganaching it.
Notes
More than an elephants tale ………………..Chocolate Left over Rice Cake, Gluten Free
Chocolate Leftover Rice Cake seen first on My Kitchen Stories
I love it! Made from boiled rice and it turned out very well both times.
Did you try it eggless?
Hi Ga
I’m really pleased you made the cake and liked it. I was making an orange and almond cake one day and I began to think….. what if I made this with something else. Eggs, sugar and another flavour and I landed on chocolate. The basis of the recipe is definitely sugar and eggs so I have not considered making it eggless as they are such a big component of the actual recipe.
Why don’t you give it a try though and let me know?
Thanks for your comment!
Best Regards Tania
Hi, I made some last night and they are super yummy and very light (Made them with coconut rice so didn’t add the Golden syrup)
But I’ve just realised I’m not keeping them refrigerated and it’s rice, should I have refrigerated them?
Thanks
Ella
Sorry for the late reply Ella. They would have been fine overnight and maybe a day but they will start to go mouldy after a few days. It is fine that they were left unrefrigerated though.
This worked really well for me but far too sweet so I reduced the sugar and used xylitol instead. I didn’t have cocoa powder, so made it chocolate chip with good quality dark chocolate. Great – thanks so much, now I know what to do with old rice!
Hi Tricia. Glad you liked it. Recipes are to be reworked so good job!
I love the idea of this recipe, but mine was too wet and needed more than an hour to bake. I should have left it in even longer (maybe 80 minutes?) because it shrank dramatically while cooling and became very dense. Still tastes very nice, though! Just not cake as much as a cousin to a fudge/brownie/gel-loaf.
Perhaps seemingly over-baking (so that more water is baked out) could be the key to keeping the cake-like structure.
Some additional notes on how to tell if it is fully baked could be helpful.
Hi Hanner
Thank s for your email. I appreciate you writing to me.
I have made this cake many many times and it works well. It does come out exactly like it does in the pictures
I completely take on board your comments though and will upload it with process pictures and advise for a great experience next time someone makes it.
I always make this cake with rice that is not wet. That is it is kind of dry like day old rice you have left over. I am not sure if your rice was perhaps boiled and therefore contained a lot of water.
At any rate it is very annoying to make something and have it not turn out. I will get onto this as soon as I can.
Best wishes and thanks for your comments
Tania
I’d love to make this again with the proper wet-level of rice! It really is delicious.
It is so hard to make anything work for every person, especially with a global audience, so I really appreciate the effort you have made to create and share recipes.
I know GF baking is no easy task when even ambient humidity can throw the whole thing off, so any tips you could add would be great!
Again, thank you for your work and for sharing it with the world, especially for free!
What is almond meal n golden syrup
Hi Navya
Almond meal is the name we use in Australia, it simply means ground almond. Americans call it almond flour. Golden syrup is something like a light golden treacle. You maybe able to get that, if not just use honey. Golden syrup just gives a nice caramely flavour