All-Natural Orange Pudding {Atol de Naranja}

Living in California, we are lucky enough to have orange trees in our backyard, and recently my husband and Little Monkey gathered up a huge bag of juicy oranges for us to enjoy.  We had to many, I decided it would be a good time to try my sister-in-law’s recipe for Costa Rican orange pudding, or atol de naranja.  It is delicious!  Little Monkey and I ate big bowls of it before I remembered that I really should save some for the others!

Atol can be translated different ways.  Often it means a thick, sweet drink, as in atol de avena, the vanilla oatmeal steamer I adore.  In this case, it is more like a pudding, though depending on how you like it, you can also make it even thicker, to the consistency like jello. It is easy to make and will turn out well even if (as in my case) you don’t really know what you are doing!  It is a fun recipe to experiment with, by either changing up the spices or adding more or less cornstarch to vary the consistency.  However you decide to do it, you’ll have a delicious, all-natural treat to share with your family!

A photo posted by Leanna Alldonemonkey (@alldonemonkey) on Jun 19, 2015 at 11:56am PDT

All-Natural Orange Pudding

Ingredients

3 cups orange juice

1 cinnamon stick

1 cup water

1/4 cup maizena (cornstarch)

sugar/honey to taste (I used 1/4 cup of honey)

Warm orange juice and cinnamon stick on the stove.  While it simmers, mix the cornstarch into the water until it dissolves.  When the juice begins to boil, add the water-cornstarch mixture, taking care to stir constantly.  Add sugar or honey.  When it begins to thicken, remove from heat.  Cool in refrigerator until thickens completely.