Rote Grutze
A German pudding of red berries thickened with cornflour and served cold with vanilla sauce or cream, ready in 25 minutes plus chilling.
Photograph credit: Rote Grütze mit Vanillesoße (image of rødgrød on Wikidata Q493749) by Olaf Simons · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
How to Cook Rote Grutze
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Put the berries, grape juice and sugar in a pan and simmer gently for 8 minutes until just breaking down.
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Mix the cornflour and cold water. Take the pan off the heat and stir it in.
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Return to the heat and stir for 2 minutes until clear and thick.
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Pour into a bowl, sprinkle the top with a teaspoon of sugar and cool.
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Chill for 2 hours.
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Serve with the vanilla sauce.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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What Can Go Wrong
- Use a mix of sharp and sweet berries.
- Do not add too much cornflour.
- Sprinkle the top with sugar against a skin.
A Little Background
The first sign it is ready is the colour: a deep, glossy red that clings to the spoon. Rote Grütze is a north German dessert of mixed red berries, simmered briefly with sugar and thickened a little, and eaten cold with vanilla sauce, cream or custard.
Use a mix of raspberries, redcurrants, strawberries and sour cherries, fresh or frozen. A mixture of sharp and sweet fruit gives it depth. Simmer them in their own juice and a splash of red grape juice for 8 minutes, until they just begin to break down. Stir the thickener in off the heat: cornflour slaked in cold water, then return the pan to the heat for 2 minutes until clear. Too much cornflour makes it stodgy.
Pour into a glass bowl, sprinkle with a little sugar to stop a skin forming, and chill for at least 2 hours. Serve in glasses with cold vanilla sauce poured around, not over, so the red stays bright. It keeps for 3 days in the fridge and tastes better on the second.
What to Serve It With
Vanilla sauce · Cream · Vanilla ice cream
Keeping Rote Grutze
Keeps for 3 days in the fridge.
Common Questions
How long does Rote Grutze take to make?
10 minutes of preparation and 15 minutes of cooking, plus 2 hours of Chilling, so allow 2 hours 25 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 6.
What's in a Serving
Per serving, an approximate calculation from the ingredient list. Treat it as a rough guide: all the alcohol is counted, though some is lost in cooking. The calories include 20 g of alcohol a serving, which is not part of the protein, carbohydrate or fat. 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. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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