Aaron's Easy Horchata

Aaron's Easy Horchata

Horchata is a creamy vanilla and cinammon flavoured rice based drink with middle eastern origins, that was adopted by the Spanish and then brought to Central and South America where it evolved into the delicious drink we have today.  Here's an easy recipe for horchata that I came up with after some experimenting and some help from Google.  It's very simple to make and it's also very easy to customize to be dairy free.  It can also be turned into a boozy drink fairly easily, but it really doesn't need it (spicy rye or spiced rum works best). 

Ingredients:

3 cups of water

1 cup of white rice

2 cups of milk

1 tablespoon of cinnamon

1 tablespoon of vanilla extract

2/3 cup of sugar

Steps:

1. Boil water

2. Add boiling water to rice in a bowl

3. Let rice soak at room temperature overnight

4. Put rice and water in the blender and blend until fully blended (it'll look like milk)  *If you don't have a blender, you can instead strain out the rice, but the horchata will ended up thinner and more watery, so you may want to add cream or condensed milk.

5. *Optional* Strain through a coffee filter (it'll be chalky if you don't strain it)

5. Add milk, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla and stir.

6. Chill.  Serve.  Enjoy.

***Variation:

Blend with ice to make a horchata slushie.