• Toast the rice and cinnamon stick together in a dry pan until the rice is golden and emits a nutty aroma¹. Tip into a large bowl, along with the almonds and water. Cover with a plate or towel and leave to soak overnight.
• The next morning, tip all of the contents of the bowl into a blender jug. Unless you have a powerful vortex blender such as a Vitamix, remove the cinnamon first. Add the sugar, vanilla extract, optional almond extract, and salt. Blend on high speed until the rice and almonds have broken down as finely as possible and the sugar has dissolved. Taste for sweetness and add more sugar if desired.
• Strain using either a very fine mesh or a muslin cloth. To avoid wasting the pulp, see my notes for how you can use it².
• Store in the fridge. Horchata is best served ice cold, so to serve just fill a glass with ice and then pour horchata to the brim.

Pandan option

• Make the recipe as above, but remove the cinnamon before blending. You can also omit the vanilla and almond extract if you’d like (it’s good either way).
• Once the horchata is strained, add around 250 millilitres (1 cup) of the liquid back to the blender, along with 4-6 pandan leaves that have been cut into 1 ½ centimetre (½ inch) pieces. Blend on high speed until the leaves break up as finely as possible and the horchata turns green.
• Use muslin to strain this liquid back into the rest of the horchata. Discard the pandan leaf pulp.

Khao mak option

• Add 2-4 tablespoons khao mak in the bottom of your glass before topping up with ice and horchata. It’s fine enough to drink with a normal straw or you can eat it with a spoon.