Recipe and Photo from: https://nordicfoodliving.com/risalamande-danish-rice-dessert/
Serve this delicious dessert on Christmas Eve and whoever finds the almond should receive a small prize.
Ingredients
Rice pudding
- 1 cup short-grained white rice (pudding rice)
- 1/2 cup water
- 4 1/4 cups milk
- 2 vanilla beans (the seeds)
Risalamande
- 5 1/2 oz. almonds
- 2 Tbsp. sugar
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1 can cherry sauce (for topping)
Instructions
Rice pudding:
In a saucepan; add rice and water. Heat up and let it boil for about 2 minutes.
Add the milk to the pudding and heat up until boiling under constantly stirring.
Add the seeds from the vanilla beans. This is done by slicing the vanilla beans and scrape out the seeds using a knife. Mix the vanilla with 2 tablespoons of sugar. Also, add the empty vanilla beans to the pudding (they still have a lot of flavor).
Let the pudding simmer under a lid at low heat. The rice has a tendency to burn to the saucepan so remember to stir regularly. Let it simmer for about 35 minutes.
Remove the empty vanilla beans. The rice pudding is now done. Let it cool in the fridge before you proceed to make the Risalamande. You can easily make this rice pudding a day in advance.
Risalamande
Heat some water until boiling and pour it in a small bowl. Add the almonds and let them soak in the hot water for about 5-7 minutes. One by one, take the almonds up and press them between two fingers so that the peel separates from the almond. Add more hot water if needed. It should be easy to skin the almonds.
Coarsely chop the almonds and mix them with the cold rice pudding.
If you used the original recipe for rice pudding (and not the one in this recipe) and boiled the rice pudding without the vanilla beans, then add the seeds of the beans to the pudding now. Add it to the cold rice pudding and mix well.
In a separate bowl, whisk the heavy cream into whipped cream and gently mix it with the rice pudding. The Risalamande is now done. Put it in the fridge until serving.
Notes
Serve the Risalamande with warm cherry sauce. If you want to play the traditional Danish almond-game (mandelgave), leave a whole almond without the peel in the Risalamande – who ever gets the whole almond, wins a small prize.