Easy, Delicious And Nutritious Rice Pudding
Rice pudding is a handy dessert when you can’t really afford to cook. It is prepared relatively quickly, but it is still a tasty, nutritious and satisfying dessert. If you’ve never made it before, now is the time to roll up your sleeves and get to work.
Below you will find step-by-step instructions for making rice pudding.
Where does rice pudding come from?
Rice pudding was originally native to Asia, but today it is eaten in many different countries. It is a tasty combination of rice, milk, sugar, cinnamon, lemon and vanilla, among other things, and is such a varied dessert that it can be enjoyed either cold, hot or even frozen. It all depends on your own taste preferences.
The story goes that around the 17th century, in the region of Catalonia in Spain, a dessert called Manjar Blanco was eaten that only the rich could afford. For this reason, chefs began using rice instead of chicken or fish to make it available to the rest of the population as well.
An interesting fact is that in the beginning, this dessert was made from honey. It should be noted that cane sugar arrived in the country during the Crusades. Later, with Persian and Venetian merchants, it became quite popular.
Modern rice pudding
Today, rice is first cooked with milk and cinnamon in a saucepan and sugar is added only last. In some other recipes, the rice is instead cooked separately and all the ingredients are then mixed together. Rice pudding can also be thickened with, for example, eggs, cream or flour.
If you want to make rice pudding at home, below you will find an easy recipe. We’ll also give you some tips and variations so you can choose the one that tastes best to you.
This is how the rice pudding is made
In most Latin American countries, rice pudding was traditionally made during certain seasons, such as the quiet week and Easter. You still don’t have to limit the preparation of this dessert to just those times you can do it anytime!
The best thing about this recipe is that it can be customized to your liking. Some like to throw in raisins, pineapples, strawberries or apples, for example. You can also add nuts or even chocolate to it. Or why not even chicken, as in the original recipe!
Ingredients
- 120 g of white rice
- 500 ml of whole milk
- 1 cinnamon stick
- ½ tablespoons salt
- 1 tablespoon butter
- peels of one orange
- 60 g sugar
- 60 g raisins
- 1 tablespoon rum
- 60 g of condensed milk
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon powder for decoration
- ice cream cones or cocktail glasses
Manufacturing
- First, rinse the rice well until the rinsing water is clear. This way the rice is sure to be pure.
- Put milk, cinnamon stick, salt and grated orange peel in a saucepan over low heat.
- Wait for the water to boil and then add the rice. Boil on low heat for 40-50 minutes.
- The rice is ready when it is soft and the liquid has evaporated. Stir constantly to speed up cooking a little.
- When the time has passed, remove the cinnamon stick and add the sugar and raisins.
- Stir a little so that it does not burn to the bottom. Cook for another 10 minutes.
- At this point, add butter, condensed milk and rum. Mix all ingredients well and remove from the heat.
- You can serve the dessert either cold or warm (according to your taste) from an ice cream bowl or cocktail glasses and sprinkle cinnamon powder on top of each serving.
Variations and additional tips
- Do not cook the rice in milk, but separately in a smaller amount of water than normal. Add the milk 20 minutes later to make the rice soft.
- You can leave the grated orange peel and raisins out of the recipe if you wish.
- You can also use honey or panela whole cane sugar instead of white sugar.
- If you use chocolate to make rice pudding, just add it at the end.
- The rice pudding can be made thicker by adding rice flour to the set (wheat flour or one tablespoon of cornstarch also works), or letting it withdraw overnight.
- If you are adding eggs, just beat the yolks and add them with the sugar at the same time so they don’t get raw.
