Simple rice pudding is basically made with rice, sugar and milk, flavored with orange zest. It is one of the best light desserts ever!

Do you like rice pudding? It is one of the simplest cold desserts to satisfy your sweet tooth in summer. You just need 3 ingredients to make an easy rice pudding: milk, rice and sugar. This creamy pudding is a perfect treat even plain, but you can turn it into an elegant dessert by adding some extra ingredients like nuts, fresh or dried fruit, lemon zest or orange zest.

Mom would make it very often when I was a kid, and I would never get bored of eating it! Depending on the season, she would add a new ingredient every time she made it. She would add dried fruit in this sweet rice pudding in winter like raisins, dried apricots or figs and she would top it with fresh fruit like strawberries, melon slices or other summer fruit. She would even top it with ice cream, but not as often as I’d like! Knowing the simple version of sweet rice pudding, you can create your own dessert with the ingredient you add into it!

We call it sutlac in Turkish and there are two main versions of sweet rice pudding in Turkish cuisine; Oven Baked Rice Pudding and stove cooked rice pudding. Oven baked version is a bit more difficult, but it’s worth. Its slightly burned top is to die for! This one doesn’t have many varieties unlike the one cooked on stove. It is mostly baked in mini clay pots and topped with hazelnuts or pistachio.

Mom is with us now helping us with our baby and she’s constantly making rice pudding saying that it increases the amount and the quality of breast milk. If I eat it everyday as mom wants, I’m sure it increases my weight too! I don’t have any problems with the production of my breast milk, so I think it works besides the other foods and drinks mom wants me to have.

She made it with raisins and orange zest this time since this combination is one of my favorites. You can add your favorite fruit instead.

OTHER MILK BASED TURKISH DESSERTS