One of the things most people miss from childhood is their mother’s cuisine. It is impossible not to remember all the special meals and desserts mothers used to cook for snacks, important events, or just for having during cold nights.
Most families certainly have a special dessert used as comfort food, like rice pudding. Every house has in their sweet repertoire a delicious and creamy rice pudding recipe.
You surely felt loved and pampered every time your mother showed up with a bowl of her sweet pudding. And this is a feeling you want to replicate with your children.
Rice pudding like your mom’s
Maybe you have tried several times to cook your mom’s rice pudding with no success. You kept watching your mother cooking it, but when you tried to do it at home, it was a complete mess. Even though you have taken notes of each step of the process, you are not able to replicate it.
Do not stress out, you need to understand that you can make your own version using your mother’s recipes as a guideline. Nothing keeps you from creating your rice pudding by adding other ingredients or using a different cooking technique.
First things first
Start by knowing what is and how do you make rice pudding. A rice pudding is just a simple sweetened bowl of rice, milk, and sugar. It can be cooked in a stovetop, oven, microwave, crockpot, pressure cooker or rice cooker.
To this simple rice pudding base, you can add some flavorings or tops like fresh fruits, nuts, raisins, syrups, jams, shredded coconut, cinnamon, vanilla, lemon zest, and so much more.
You can be creative at this point and incorporate your favorite flavors. And even, you can turn this dessert into a nutritious breakfast.
Best rice pudding recipes
Once you get the idea of what a rice pudding is, it is a great time to start trying new recipes and choose the right one for you.
Use your mother’s techniques as a guide, blend it with these recipes and create your own version of rice pudding. You can be sure of something: you will surely find the recipe for a rice pudding your children will love.
Quick rice pudding (4-6 servings)
Ingredients:
- ½ cup of long grain rice.
- 1 liter of whole milk.
- 2 tablespoons of caster sugar.
- ½ teaspoon of vanilla essence.
- Strawberry jam.
Preparation:
- In a large saucepan, pour milk and simmer.
- Add rice and sugar, and stir very well. Cook until boiling.
- Reduce heat, and add vanilla essence.
- Cover the saucepan and cook for 30 minutes.
- Stir constantly until you get a creamy mixture.
- Serve warm or cool with strawberry jam on the top.
Baked rice pudding (6 servings)
Ingredients:
- 1 cup of long-grain rice (Basmati will work perfectly).
- 1 liter of whole milk.
- 1 vanilla pod.
- 2 tablespoons of white sugar.
- Butter to grease baking tray.
- Ground cinnamon to taste.
- Raisins to taste.
Preparation:
- Preheat the oven to 285 F (140 °C).
- In a saucepan, pour milk, and cook until it gets warm.
- Incorporate half of the vanilla pot and sugar. Stir very well.
- Grease a baking dish, and add the long grain rice.
- Pour milk mixture all over rice and mix.
- Bake for 40 minutes, then remove the vanilla pod and cook for 30 more minutes.
- Take out of the oven when rice is cooked and creamy.
- Serve warm with ground cinnamon and raisins.
Some extra tips
These are two very easy rice pudding recipes, but if you still have some doubts about making a hit of them, follow these tips:
- Always use long-grain rice. It contains the high starch content needed to get a creamy dish. Arborio or basmati types are OK.
- Cook rice with enough milk. The perfect ratio is 1 liter of milk for ½ cup of rice.
- Prefer white sugar, and taste it when cooking so you can add more sugar if you want a more sweetened rice pudding.
- Add vanilla at the beginning of cooking.
- Some people change vanilla for lemon zest, it’s up to your taste.
- Cooking rice pudding on the stovetop or oven is the traditional way. If you want the easiest way, you can use instant pots, pressure cookers, or rice cookers. The process will be simpler and quicker.