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EveryCow

Festival dishes

Rice pudding

Rice cooked slowly in milk, eaten as Christmas porridge in the Nordic countries and baked or chilled across Europe.

Rice pudding is rice simmered or baked slowly in milk with sugar until soft and creamy. Across Europe it takes many forms: baked with a brown skin in England, chilled with cinnamon as arroz con leche in Spain, and in the Nordic countries a Christmas porridge, risengrød, with a hidden almond. Dairy rice puddings are cooked across the world.

What goes in

Whole milk: 63%63%Short-grain rice: 13%13%Sugar: 6%Cinnamon, lemon peel or vanilla: 6%Cream: 13%13%5parts
  • Whole milk1063%, Absorbed slowly by the rice.
  • Short-grain rice213%, Releases starch for creaminess.
  • Sugar16%, To taste.
  • Cinnamon, lemon peel or vanilla16%, Depends on the country.
  • Cream213%, Whipped in for risalamande.

Rough parts by weight. The ring shows each input's share of the product.

Made step by step

Each drawing shows the operation for that step. Quantities and timings differ from house to house and herd to herd; this is one traditional way, in outline.

  1. Step 1: Boil Bring milk to the boil with the flavouring.
  2. Step 2: Cook Add the rice and simmer gently, stirring often, until soft and thick.
  3. Step 3: Cook Stir in sugar near the end.
  4. Step 4: Serve Serve warm, or chill and fold in whipped cream and almonds.
  5. Whole milk: 63%63%Short-grain rice: 13%13%Sugar: 6%Cinnamon, lemon peel or vanilla: 6%Cream: 13%13%
    Finished Rice pudding, by share.

Nordic Christmas

In Denmark, rice porridge is eaten on Christmas Eve, and the leftovers are mixed with whipped cream and chopped almonds as risalamande, served cold with cherry sauce. One whole almond is hidden in the bowl, and whoever finds it wins a small gift. Sweden, Norway and Finland have similar customs, and a bowl of porridge is left out for the farm elf, the nisse or tomte.

Spain and Britain

In Asturias, northern Spain's dairy region, arroz con leche is cooked with lemon peel and cinnamon and finished with a caramelised sugar crust. In Britain, rice pudding was baked slowly in the oven with milk, sugar and nutmeg, and the brown skin was fought over. Similar puddings were once cooked in the dying heat of bread ovens.

Where it is used

Christmas Eve porridgeRisalamandeSunday pudding

The breeds behind it

Danish RedDenmark's red dairy breed.

Also part of it, and being written: Jutland cattle (Old native breed of Denmark.), Asturian Valley cattle (Native breed of Asturias.), Dairy Shorthorn (The old dairy cow of British farms.).

More on EveryCow

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Sources and further reading

About this page

Original text and drawings by the EveryCow desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. The shares are a rough, illustrative ratio, not a recipe: every family and dairy makes it differently. If we have something wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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