Traditional Danish Risalamande creamy rice pudding

I’ve always liked the Norwegian Riskrem, which basically means creamed rice. But when I met Lea, I was introduced to the – ahem – superior Danish Risalamande. Here’s how you make yours!

Ingredients

• 500 g rice porridge (recipe below)
• 150 g whipping cream
• 50 g skinned, chopped almonds
• 4 tbsp confectioner’s sugar
• 1 vanilla pod

Method

Place your raw almonds into boiling water, and boil for exactly one minute. Drain in a colander or strainer.

Wrap them in a kitchen towel and give them a good rub all over, then pick trough the ones that hasn’t already been skinned afterwards. Chop coarsely, and set aside.

Split the vanilla pod, scrape our the seeds, and mix the seeds well with 1 tbsp confectioner’s sugar. Tip into a bowl with the cream, and whip the cream until soft peaks form.

Add the whipped cream to the cold rice porridge, add the remaining confectioner’s sugar, chopped almonds, and mix well. Cover bowl with a lid, and set in the fridge until serving. It is best served within a few hours, but keeps well for a day.

Traditionally served with cherry sauce, but we are huge fans of chili orange sauce too! Recipes for both below 🙂

Tradition is also to have one single whole skinned almond in the Risalamande. Whoever get’s the almond gets a marzipan pig!

Rice porridge

Tradition is you make the porridge the day before the dessert, and have the porridge for dinner, with a knob of butter in the middle, and sugar and cinnamon on top. This recipe is dinner for 4 + dessert for 4 the day after.

• 300 ml short grain rice
• 600 ml water
• 1.5 liters whole milk 3.5% fat
• 1.5 tsp fine sea salt

Bring water, rice and salt to a boil, and simmer under lid until much of the water has boiled into the rice, approx.. 10 minutes. Add the milk and simmer at very low heat while stirring occasionally, until creamy thick.

Cherry sauce

• 65 g demerara sugar
• 100 ml port wine
• 200 ml water
• 400 g cherries deseeded
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch

Add all ingredients to the pot, except the corn starch, bring to a boil, and simmer gently for 10-15 minutes. Mix the starch with a bit of water, and tip into the pot. Simmer for a few more minutes until thickened. Put a lid on, and set aside to cool. Serve at room temperature.

Orange chili sauce

• 50 g demerara sugar
• 100 ml orange juice
• 1 vanilla pod, seeds and pod
• 1/2 finely chopped habanero chili, seeds removed

Add all ingredients to the pot, bring to a boil, and simmer gently for 10-15 minutes. Put a lid on, and set aside to cool. Fish out the pod before serving. Serve at room temperature.