In her newsletter, baker Bronwen Wyatt, the "trendsetter" behind New Orleans's Bayou Saint Cake, listed rice pudding as an "in" for 2024, writing: "IDK I just have a feeling about this one!!"
Wyatt's "prediction" was somewhat tongue-in-cheek: Rice pudding — and arroz con leche, riz au lait, kheer, and so on — is a globally loved dessert that has never left homes or menus. At the same time, however, rice pudding also carries a sense of being misunderstood or underappreciated. The mental image might be grocery store Kozy Shack cups, and people often align themselves with the dueling schools of chocolate desserts or fruit desserts, leaving rice pudding in an awkward, less prominent in-between. But could rice pudding finally, in fact, be getting its due?
Look at menus around the country, and it's a wonder rice pudding has ever been considered "boring." In Iran, there is sholeh zard; in Mexico, there is arroz con leche; in Austin, the owners of Nixta, who come from the two cultures — Sara Mardanbigi's parents immigrated from Iran, Edgar Rico's immigrated from Mexico — make a rice pudding with both influences, using cardamom, turmeric, pistachios, cinnamon, and strawberry powder. The rice pudding at San Francisco's Dalida resembles a Basque cheesecake, charred and drizzled with smoked caramel sauce; the kheer that will soon hit the menu at nearby Besharam will be topped with a sugar brulee.
Corrida, a "Spanish chophouse" in Boulder, Colorado, extends its love of beef to its desserts, occasionally offering rice pudding topped with green strawberries and beef tallow caramel. More often though, the rice pudding is vegan and paired with sorbet. Clearly, rice pudding is versatile and full of inspiration to draw from; every culture that relies on rice has found a way to also make it dessert.
For restaurants, rice pudding can also be smart logistics. It's the only dessert on the seven-item menu at Traveling Mercies in Aurora, Colorado, a 400-square-foot cocktail and oyster bar that operates using only a toaster oven and a hot plate. Aside from being nostalgic for chef and owner Caroline Glover, the rice pudding (and its components of passionfruit jam and lime whipped cream) can be made ahead of service, served cold, and assembled quickly to order.
Even when juxtaposed against more flashy desserts on menus, the rice pudding can hold its own. Although TikTokers dining at New York City's Claud tend to emphasize the wine bar's supersized chocolate cake, its rice pudding is ever-popular, sometimes paired and eaten with the other desserts, according to co-owner Chase Sinzer. Instead of getting left behind by the cakes, the rice pudding "got brought up alongside [them]," Sinzer says. Inspired by co-owner Joshua Pinsky's grandfather's rice pudding, Claud's is topped with Luxardo cherries and dusted with cinnamon.
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