Reynaldo's Rice Pudding: How do I make it at home?

[shwilkinson]

So my new obsession is Reynaldo's rice pudding. They sell it in individual 8 oz containers at Safeway. I love it. Too much. I sneak it into the house and hide it in the fridge so my husband won't eat it. Indeed, my life would be much easier if I could only make it at home. I know there are much better cooks on this site than I, so I'm going to list the ingredients below. If there are any intrepid pudding makers out there who can tell me how to approximate these ingredients into something close to Reynaldo's Rice Pudding, I'd be forever grateful. The thing is, I've made other rice puddings. Mine have never come out all that good. My patient husband has been forced to eat the results on his own. The recipes that have egg in them are, to me, disgusting. So disgusting that I've stopped eating Cozy Shak, which has an egg in it. There are no eggs in Reynaldo's Rice Pudding.

Here are the ingredients to my lovely Reynaldo's Rice Pudding, listed in the order they appear on the container. Dear Chowhounders, help me make this at home!!!

Whole Milk
Rice
Sugar
Sweetened Condensed Milk
Cinnamon Extract
Imitation Vanilla Flavor (Gasp--but I would happily use imitation vanilla if it could make this pudding taste like Reynaldos. I really would. That's how much I love it.)
Some weird preservatives we could leave out
Cinnamon
Salt
NO EGGS

I know you all can succeed where I have failed!

[RichardB12]

Here is how to make the creamy, delicious pudding you are after without starch, without eggs. It does take some time though, but results are over the top. Reynaldos comes as close to my home cooked pudding so I know what you mean there. Lots of people use egg or cornstarch for thickener or binder. You dont need to. The below recipe is for Kheer, an Indian rice pudding. The results will be slightly different from Reynaldos, as they use vanilla, this uses cardamom. (the recipe is for 5 gallons, so cut by 1/5 you will want at least a gallon, trust me on that.
First of all, almost any white rice will do, I use basmati rice, its white but naturally so.
Use one cup of rice (washed well) to one gallon of WHOLE milk. And one cup of sugar. You can use white if you like, I use Turbinado. So, easy ingredients, one cup rice, one cup sugar one gallon milk
Kheer Indian Rice Pudding
Serving Size ( Fl Oz) 6.00
Servings 266.67
Yield (Gallons) 6.25
Kheer
2.50 Gal Whole Milk Place in 1st Pot
5.00 Cups Rice - Basmati Add to 1st pot , bring to boil, beat back foam, slow boil for 1.5 hours
2.50 Gal Whole Milk Place in 2 nd pots, bring to 200 F, Remove from heat, reserve
Reserved Milk Pour into 1st Pot, boil, beat back foam
5.00 Cups Turbinado Sugar Add
4.00 tsp Whole Black Cardamom Seed, Fresh Ground Ground with 1 T of Turbinado fine, return to boil cook 1.25-1.5 hours until thick
1.00 Cups Raisin - Black Add to 5 Gal Bucket
1.00 Tbs Raisin - Golden Add
0.75 Cups Almond Sliced Add, Stir
0.50 Cups Pistachio Finely chopped, garnish when slightly cooled, cover, refrigerate

This will naturally thicken up, so that when its cold, you can turn it over in the cup and it wont spill out. That thick.
Also, the rice, cooking for close to 2 hours breaks down very well, VERY smooth, but still a rice you can feel. The KEY to this is the long cooking time. Once you get the milk boiling, it has a tendency to boil over. Beat the foam with a whip, until the tight bubbles give way over a minute or two to larger and larger bubbles, and then the whole foam (protein burnoff) subsides, and you can reduce to a simmer for the rest of the cooking. Use a thick bottomed pan. You have to keep attention to stir and scrape the bottom of the pan to keep it from burning, but you dont have to go crazy. If you cant read the recipe well, cut and paste this post into a word document, or spreadsheet. This is the secret to incredible time... cooking the milk with the rice for a long time. Magic happens.

[paulj]

I assume this is a stove top pudding - or at least the home made version would be. And given the name, and ingredients like sweetened condensed milk and cinnamon, it is Mexican or Latin in style.

A medium grain rice, like that sold by Goya, should work nicely. Most stove top puddings first cook the rice in water (normal ratios and time), then adds the same amount of milk and cooks it till pudding like. Sweetened condensed milk substitutes for part of the sugar.

I'd suggest searching for 'dulce de arroz' recipes, and see if you can understand the computer translation. It doesn't sound like there is anything particularly unique about their recipe.

[TomAto17]

Hi there I too have recently fallen in love with Reynaldos rice pudding and its delicious creamy and vanilly taste lol. If I were going to try and imitate the recipe, this is what I would do. First I would determine the type of rice they use, my best guess would be some sort of short grain rice. I would then wash the rice to remove the excess starch as to me their pudding doesn't seem to have that gelatinous starchiness that regular rice puddings have. Then I would cook the rice with just water on low heat with a cinnamon stick in the pot for some added cinnamon flavor, although I doubt they do that. Once the rice is cooked, I would then make the pudding, by adding enough whole milk id say 3 to one ratio of rice, so here I will say about 3 cups whole milk for one cup of raw rice. Maybe more if needed. Id mix the milk, one can of condensed milk, a bit extra sugar to your liking, a cinnamon stick and let that come to a boil. Also I would add a pinch of salt. Once its cooked down a bit to a thicker consistency, then I would add the cooked rice and let it cook a little more so the rice can really absorb the pudding. At the end I would add the vanilla and sprinkle some ground cinnamon on the top. That is just how I would attempt to make it myself, I have no idea how it will come out, but the best rice puddings i have made are the ones where the rice is precooked, because when I used to make rice pudding with the raw rice and milk, the milk would always burn at the bottom no matter how much I stirred. Anyway, another way I can think of improving this recipe is again by precooking the rice, but using a prepackaged vanilla pudding mix, not instant, and heating the milk with a cinnamon stick for that cinnamon flavor and then adding the rice to that and letting it kind of absorb the milk first then adding the pudding mixture. Hopefully the rice will get absorbed real well once it cools and not be a big lumpy mess. Sorry for all the writing, but if you come across a recipe that tastes close to Reynaldos Rice Pudding please let me no ASAP! LOL

[neskya]

Use a crockpot! Low gentle heat keeps it from burning. Try Uncles Gus's rice pudding from the Antoinette Pope book (You can put the egg yolks in or leave them out -- they are just there for richness) Substitute coconut milk for part of the cream and you will have something that crosses over into the divine! Stovetop boils over and baked is always underdone -- crockpot is my go-to.