Daring to do it: Arancine

January’s Daring Cooks’ challenge was a ball! The lovely Manu from Manu’s Menu brought our taste buds to the streets of Sicily and taught us her family tradition of making arancine – filled and fried balls of risotto. Delizioso!

My first challenge as a member of the Daring Kitchen was the risotto challenge.  I loved it, and I was hooked.  Back then, a few of the Cooks mentioned making arancini/arancine from the leftover risotto.  This sounded really cool.  Well, here we are a few years later with Manu hosting an arancine challenge!  Yay!
While arancine, filled and fried balls of risotto, are usually a savory dish, anyone who has met me, either in person or through the blog, knows that I will take any opportunity to make dessert versions of things.  So that is what I did.
I started by toasting my rice in margarine, with a touch of brown sugar:

 Then I made my "stock," vanilla soy milk, water to thin it, a bit of sugar, a bit of cinnamon:
Then cook the risotto to creamy yumminess:

Once the risotto has cooled (in my case, I made it a day in advance), form balls and make a well:

 Fill the well.  With chocolate chips if you are me...!

Coat the stuffed and sealed balls in egg whites and crushed graham crackers:

Shallow fry until warm and crispy:

Enjoy the amazingness!

These were so good.
I promise, a "real," savory version was planned, and will be made at some point.  But I loved making these, and while they take a bit of work (one of my few Yiddish words - these are a "patchke" to make!), they will be made again!
Check out what my fellow Daring Cooks created this month!