Risalamande
Danish cold rice pudding mixed with whipped cream and chopped almonds and served with warm cherry sauce, chilled for 3 hours.
Photograph credit: Risalamande (image of risalamande on Wikidata Q13603269) by Malene Thyssen · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Storing and Planning Ahead
Keeps for 2 days in the fridge.
Risalamande: The Method
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Simmer the rice in the milk with the vanilla pod and 60 g sugar for 35 minutes, stirring, until thick and creamy. Remove the pod. Cool completely.
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Whip the cream to soft peaks and fold into the cold rice with the almonds.
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Chill for 3 hours.
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Simmer the cherries, 80 g sugar and water for 10 minutes. Stir in the cornflour mixed with a little water and cook for 2 minutes.
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Serve the pudding in bowls with the warm sauce.
Tips for Success
- Cool the rice completely before adding cream.
- Chill for at least 3 hours.
- Hide a whole almond for the prize.
Behind the Recipe
Compare it to the rice pudding in the pan, and this one is cold, fluffy and full of cream. Risalamande, the Danish Christmas dessert, is a plain rice pudding stirred with whipped cream, chopped almonds and vanilla, and served with a warm cherry sauce. There is a game that goes with it: one whole almond is hidden in the bowl, and whoever finds it wins a prize.
Simmer short grain rice in milk with a vanilla pod for 35 minutes, until thick and creamy, stirring often. Cool it completely, spread out in a bowl, and then chill. Do not fold in the cream until the rice is cold, otherwise the cream melts and the pudding is runny. Whip the cream with a little sugar and fold it in, with chopped blanched almonds.
Chill the pudding for at least 3 hours. For the sauce, simmer cherries with sugar and a splash of water for 10 minutes, and thicken with a little cornflour. Serve the cold pudding in bowls and pour over the warm cherry sauce. Hide a whole almond in one bowl for the prize.
Good Alongside
Cherry sauce · Coffee · Mulled wine
Ingredient Swaps
- In a sauce, full-fat crème fraîche can usually take the place of the double cream; single cream is thinner and more likely to split if it boils, so keep it below a simmer.
Questions About Risalamande
How long does Risalamande take to make?
15 minutes of preparation and 40 minutes of cooking, plus 3 hours of Chilling, so allow 3 hours 55 minutes from start to finish. The method also needs time for cooling completely, which it does not time, so treat that as a minimum. The recipe serves 6.
What's in a Serving
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked.
First published ; last changed .
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