What to bake this weekend: Japanese baked yoghurt with blood orange and crunchy brown rice

Simple to make, this delicious Japanese dessert can be prepared in advance for a visually striking, fresh finish to a dinner party. Alternatively, you could make eight beautiful petit four-sized afternoon tea desserts and serve them in very small dainty glasses.

Baked yoghurt with blood orange & crunchy brown rice
Makes 4 individual or 8 petit four-sized desserts

Ingredients

For the blood orange compote

• 3 large or 4 small blood oranges
• 1 tsp cornflour
• 50g caster sugar

For the baked yoghurt

• 200g condensed milk
• 200ml whipping/heavy cream
• 250g natural/plain yoghurt

For the toasted brown rice

• 50g uncooked brown rice
  
• baby red vein sorrel, to decorate (optional)

Equipment

• heatproof serving glasses
• piping bag with a large plain nozzle (optional)
• large, deep roasting pan
• blender (optional)

Method

1. To make the blood orange compote, peel the oranges and use a sharp knife to cut out the segments, removing any pith. Reserve the segments and squeeze out as much juice as possible from the carcass of the blood oranges into a saucepan.
2. In a separate small bowl, stir together a tablespoon of the blood orange juice from the saucepan with the cornflour and set aside.
3. Add the sugar to the saucepan with the full amount of blood orange juice, then set over high heat and bring to the boil. Once the juice is boiling, add the cornflour and whisk constantly until the cornflour has cooked out – give it a taste to make sure that no powder remains. Divide the compote evenly into the bottom of each heatproof serving glass (saving a little for decoration) and let cool. When cool enough, transfer the glasses to the freezer for a minimum of 2-3 hours until frozen, or ideally the night before you want to serve the dessert.
4. Preheat the oven to 150ºC/gas mark 2.
5. To make the baked yoghurt, whisk all the ingredients together and transfer to a piping bag, if using. Remove the glasses from the freezer and pipe or spoon the yoghurt mixture on top of the frozen blood orange compote.
6. Pour a little hot water into the bottom of the large, deep roasting pan and put the glasses into the tray – the water should only come about one-quarter of the way up the side of the glasses. Transfer the bain-marie to the preheated oven and bake for around 10-15 minutes or until set. Remove from the oven and leave the yoghurts to cool, then refrigerate until needed.
7. To make the toasted brown rice, put a small frying pan over a high heat. Add the brown rice and cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring frequently, until lightly golden all over. Transfer the rice to a heatproof container and, once cooled, crush in a pestle and mortar or whizz briefly in a blender to make a coarse powder. Set aside ready for decorating the desserts.
8. To construct the desserts, divide the reserved orange segments between each glass on top of the cooled baked yoghurt. Drizzle over the reserved blood orange compote and add a little of the toasted brown rice to each. Finish with a little red vein sorrel to dress, if you like, and serve chilled or at room temperature.

Extracted from Japanese Patisserie by James Campbell (Ryland Peters & Small). Photography by Mowie Kay, Ryland Peters & Small.