The Annual Raspberry Rice Pudding

It is a Mason-Dietrich tradition to make raspberry rice pudding each year for Thanksgiving (and often for Christmas too).  The pudding is rich, sweet and utterly delicious.  You may recall reading it about in the past when we shared Thanksgiving with friends in Wisconsin, although by the time I actually got a picture of the rice pudding that year, it didn’t look anything like the beautiful red and white dish that it truly is.  We have a lot of fun memories eating raspberry rice pudding with all sorts of different people during our Thanksgiving adventures.

There are a lot of steps to making raspberry rice pudding, and it is a time consuming dish that involves a lot of heating and cooling, so I’m always happy when we have a nice snowbank right  out the back door to assist with speedy cooling for the rice base and the raspberry sauce.  It really accelerates the process.

One of the most exciting things about raspberry rice pudding, is that at some point during the process of making the pudding, a single whole almond is thrown into the dish and mixed in quickly.  Whoever ends up with the almond in their dish wins a special prize.  It is terribly exciting, and over the years there have been several people who just haven’t been able to stop eating raspberry rice pudding until they have found the almond.  At that point, they really don’t want raspberry rice pudding for many, many days.  It is a rich, rich dish.

This year Mr. SP said to me in a very mature little voice, “Mama, even if I don’t get the almond, and I really do want that almond, it is still just a special treat to eat the pudding because it is SO YUMMY!”  Happily enough, though, he DID get the almond.  The Banana was on the phone with Grandma Robbie at the time, and across the table Mr. SP was punching the air and yelping in celebration.

This year’s prize was a trip to Barnes and Nobles with just mom.  Everyone really wanted to get the prize.  Aren’t I kind of sneaky?  I got the prize no matter what, even if I didn’t get the almond!  If I did get the almond I planned on going my very lonesome self and staying for hours.  I think Mr. SP and I will have a very good time.