Rice pudding

By Birgitta

Ingredients

• 100 g pudding rice
• 35 g unsalted butter, plus a bit extra
• 650 ml whole milk
• 250 ml double cream
• 1 vanilla pod, split
• 50 g caster sugar or vanilla sugar
• 6 cm strip lemon zest, pith removed
• A pinch of salt

Details

Servings 6
Adapted from guardian.co.uk

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/gas mark 2. Wash the rice in a sieve under cold water and leave to drain.

Rub the inside of a 1.5-litre ovenproof dish with a little butter. Put the milk, cream and split vanilla pod in a saucepan, heat until bubbles just start to appear around the edges, then stir in the rice, sugar, lemon zest and salt. Simmer for five minutes, pour into the greased dish - don't remove the vanilla pod or zest - and dot with butter.

Cover with foil or a lid and bake for 45 minutes. Remove from the oven, stir gently then bake, covered, for another 30 minutes. Stir again, this time scraping up any bits of rice that have stuck to the bottom.

At this point, if you prefer a pudding without a skin, cover with a lid or foil; if you love the skin, leave it off. Bake for another hour, until the rice is tender and creamy, though keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't dry out - add milk if it does.