Spiced Rice Pudding Recipe

I was invited to a friend's Golden birthday potluck and wanted to make something to bring along to the festivities which included eating lots of amazing food (homemade by a bunch of college kids), engaging in three to four different conversations at once, and being delightfully obnoxious. Since my roommate and I hadn't been to the grocery store in a week, the fridge was lacking in raw materials to make a coherent dish other than steamed veggies, PB&J sandwiches, and pasta. After raking though the cabinets to assemble a line of simple ingredients that would jive with a recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book (1965), I finally decided upon the rice pudding recipe.

Ingredients-wise, rice pudding is very simple. You more or less throw everything into a pan and put it in the oven. It is, however, very time consuming. You initially bake the main ingredients for 1 hour while stirring every so often then you add the remainder of the ingredients and bake for another hour and a half. Including the time it takes to measure out the ingredients that's about 3 hours downtime, most of it spent occupying yourself until it needs to be taken out of the oven.

 Spices lightly browned the top

Prior to being taken out of the oven, I went a little hell crazy when I was struck with an idea on how to decorate. I thawed some blueberries, sliced a pear, and peeled and grated some baby carrots.

Rice pudding decorated

 Corner detail

Below is the recipe I used with alterations made because I got creative and didn't have lemon peel. It is based off the "Old-time Rice Pudding" (measurements doubled) in the Desserts section of the cookbook.

8 cups milk (2 quarts)

1 cup rice

1 cup white sugar*

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup raisins

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cap full of rum

Ground cinnamon to taste

Optional decorations:

1 pear

1/4 cup blueberries

Baby carrots peelings

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. 

Stir together milk, rice, sugar, salt and pour into a large baking pan. (9" X 13" barely holds it.)

Bake for 1 hour, stirring contents "occasionally". Don't remove the pan every time you stir. Open the oven door and carefully stir it. Be sure not to spill any out. Burned milk isn't fun to clean up afterwards.

Remove pan and add raisins, nutmeg, vanilla, rum, and cinnamon. Stir together (contents will still be liquid) and bake for an hour and a half or until a pudding-like consistency is attained.

Decorate with fruit and carrot peelings or whatever you wish to decorate with (try strawberries, kiwi fruit, peaches, or apples). Serve warm or refrigerate and serve cold. (Makes 12 servings)

*The original recipe said that brown sugar could be a substituted for white.