TWD - Arborio Rice Pudding - Black or White

Isabelle of Les gourmandises d’Isa by Isabelle chose the Arborio Rice Pudding for this week's baking challenge. I love rice pudding so I could not wait to make this. Thanks Isabelle for a great choice!

After going to three different grocery stores looking for arborio rice, I finally found it. It was in a beautiful jar and was $5.99. I didn't care about the cost because I actually had the rice in my hand and was on my way to making my pudding. After getting home with it and checking out the recipe and seeing that only 1/4 cup was used I was like - what am I going to do with all this rice I bought! Oh well, I'm sure I'll find a use for good risotto rice at some point and I have this lovely jar to boot!

It took forever to cook. Thank goodness for all the comments left by fellow TWDers and even Dorie herself saying the timing was off in the recipe. By the time it was done, for just one second I was actually thinking minute rice would have worked, right? Don't slap me, I was tired from our kitchen renovation which is still in process. When this is over I never want to look upon a piece of tile flooring again or anything that resembles grout.

My back aches. My wrist hurts. I'm grumpy. I know it will be worth it though so I am hanging in there. Seriously, could you cook in this disaster zone? Maybe next week I will be able to post "finished" photo results!

I thought the rice pudding was so wonderful in the vanilla flavor that it needed nothing more. I did add a sprinkle of cinnamon to one dish of it. And I hid an almond inside one just for fun. Somehow I ended up with three small bowls of pudding instead of four. Maybe we are just big eaters, but this did not make a huge amount and I will double the recipe next time!

I think of rice pudding as a comfort food but in literature it is sometimes referred to as plain, cheap, or familiar. I even remember something Charles Dickens wrote relating an incident where a schoolboy was given shabby treatment with rice pudding as a pretended treat. I have never thought of rice pudding in those terms! I think it can be a positively elegant finish to an extraordinary meal!

Added history: In Europe, rice pudding with goat's milk was first used by the Romans for medicinal purposes. For this reason, the first written records of rice pudding occur in medical texts. All I know is it sure makes me feel good!

We really enjoyed it. It was smooth and rich and sweet and I will definitely make it again when I have the time!

Word of advice: Don't waste your wonderful pudding like this man did. . . .

Madcap comic Vic Reeves will not face charges after allegedly attacking a photographer with a tin of rice pudding.
Police have told the comic that there will be no further action after the alleged incident at his mansion in Aldington, Kent.
The comedian - real name Jim Moir - was said to have hurled the tin at a freelance photographer who had been waiting at his gate to take a picture.