This sweet treat will give rice pudding and bread pudding lovers the best of both worlds.

Rice pudding may be a completely normal, tasty dessert to people in certain parts of the world, but in Japan, rice is ordinarily served plain or in savory dishes. However, one of our Japanese-language writers, P.K., recently came up with a new twist on a traditional Japanese rice recipe that turns white rice into a delicious, chocolatey dessert. Takenoko gohan is a fairly simple dish that is made by cooking up rice with bamboo shoots (takenoko) and a few seasonings. But instead of using actual takenoko, P.K. substituted a few boxes of Takenoko no Sato, which are part of the same line of Meiji’s chocolate-dipped biscuit treats as Kinoko No Yama.

The recipe is simple, requires only a few ingredients, and is, as P.K. assures us, absolutely delicious. So let’s get started!

Ingredients 

Rice (uncooked) – 2 cups
Takenoko No Sato – 3 boxes
Milk (see recipe for measurements, but one carton is more than enough)

Begin by washing the rice. Place the washed rice in your rice cooker, and pour in the milk until it comes up to the four-cup line on your cooker’s measurements.

Open up all boxes of Takenoko No Sato and add to the rice cooker.

Close the lid, push “Cook”, and let the cooker work its magic.

And the finished product…?

Smells just like a cup of hot cocoa. The three boxes of Takenoko no Sato give the finished product a very mild sweetness, so if you’d like something sweeter you can add in more as you see fit. P.K. advises if you add more Takenoko no Sato, you’ll want to add more milk too, since the biscuit treats suck up quite a lot of liquid. A spoonful of sugar may do the trick too, if you’ve got a strong sweet tooth.

As for the taste, P.K. gives it two thumbs up! The Takenoko no Sato have a smooth texture, resembling bread pudding. The sweet taste of chocolate ties the whole thing together, making it a wonderful dessert.

▼ When rice pudding and bread pudding become one.

While one biased member of the office couldn’t quite get past the rice-and-chocolate combo, the rest of the team was rather pleasantly surprised. “It’s actually pretty good,” and, “As a dessert it’s not bad,” were some of the responses.

Be sure to give this a try and let us know what you think! For other rice cooker recipes, you may want to try our roast beef or these scrumptious sweet apple pancakes.

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