A Tuscan breakfast: budini di riso
Rice pudding tartlets, and an easy recipe to reproduce them at home
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The lemon-scented rice pudding tartlets of my childhood
The subtly lemon-scented rice pudding tartlets were my favourite sweet treat as a child. My mum would buy me one for a seldom breakfast at a café, or my aunt Silvana would pick one for me and one for my cousin Margherita in the early morning, before going to the market, when I used to spend a few days in San Gimignano during the summer holidays, to visit her and my granddad Remigio.
After all these years, the rice pudding tartlets are still among my favourite sweets when I treat myself with a breakfast in a café, or when I enter in a baker’s shop and they have just been baked and are still warm, slightly creamy inside.
When during our market cooking classes we sit at the local café before the market haul, among cappuccino, espresso, macchiato, and a few croissants, there’s always at least one rice pudding tartlet, unassuming in its look, but always a surprise after the first bite.
Common in many Italian regions, these rice tartlets can be found at pastry shops, or better, at your favourite baker’s shop, round or softly oval, wrapped in a paper towel. Nothing beats them when you find them freshly baked, still warm from the oven.
We usually eat them standing up at the counter, while queueing for an espresso. They are covered with icing sugar, and that icing sugar will inevitably dust your best dress on the most important morning of your life.
My favourite budini di riso are still those you can get in San Gimignano at Armando & Marcella.
You can find the Armando & Marcella pastry shop in via San Giovanni, 88. The café is exactly like it used to be in the ‘80s, same light, same tables, same overcrowded counters with every kind of biscotti, pastries, Sienese sweet treats and candies. This is where my mum and aunt used to stop in the morning for a cappuccino and a budino di riso. Slightly warm, with a crumbly and fragrant pastry shell and a creamy rice filling, this is the place to stop for a classic Italian breakfast.
If you are planning a visit to San Gimignano, you can find our guide with some interesting ideas on the blog.
