Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Christmas Eve deliciousness

©2010, Monika Roe












Every Christmas Eve in Denmark Risalamande (or some version of it) is served for dessert. It's a sweet, rich rice pudding with whipped cream folded into it. A blanched almond is mixed in and then the pudding is dished out with fruit sauce poured over the top. In my family the fruit sauce is always strawberry, but you might find it with cherry or raspberry sauce (both of those just sound so WRONG to me!)

The person who finds the almond in their bowl wins a prize. The prize could be a marzipan pig or another sweet like a chocolate bar. My grandfather would always act like he accidentally swallowed the almond to win the prize, but somehow one of us kids always found the almond. Imagine that!

My grandmother made this every year and after she passed away the tradition fell into my hands. I haven't found her recipe for it, I suspect she didn't need a recipe because she was an amazing cook and worked from memory a lot. I reconstructed it using a recipe from Sunset magazine as a loose guide for the rice pudding, and my intuition for the sauce. It's spot on.

See my illustrated recipe for Risalamande on They Draw and Cook's website!

No comments:

Post a Comment