Bay Leaf Rice Pudding

pudding rice baked slowly in bay-infused sweetened milk until creamy and tender beneath a golden, nutmeg-freckled skin, the nursery comfort pudding perfumed with a single laurel leaf

Origin: United Kingdom

From the journey of Bay Leaf.

The British tradition of infusing milk with bay reaches its sweetest expression in the baked rice pudding, one of the most beloved of all nursery and Sunday puddings. A handful of pudding rice is barely covered with sweetened whole milk, a bay leaf laid on top, a little grating of nutmeg over all, and the dish set in a low oven for the better part of two hours, until the rice has drunk up the milk and turned soft and creamy and a burnished golden skin has formed across the top. The bay leaf, steeping all the while in the warm milk, lends a gentle, fragrant, faintly resinous depth that lifts the pudding above mere sweetened rice, in just the way it scents a bread sauce or a custard; it is the quiet aromatic that makes the difference. Eaten warm, often with a spoonful of jam stirred through, baked rice pudding is comfort itself, and the bay leaf, laid in and lifted out, is its secret grace note.

Ingredients

The Pudding

  • 100 g pudding rice (short-grain)
  • 800 ml whole milk
  • 50 g caster sugar
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 25 g butter
  • 2 tbsp double cream (optional, for richness)

To Finish

  • 0.25 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 150°C. Butter a shallow ovenproof dish. Put the rice and sugar in the dish and pour over the milk (and cream, if using). Stir once.
  2. Tuck the bay leaf into the milk, dot the surface with the butter, and grate the nutmeg over the top.
  3. Bake, uncovered, for about 2 hours, until the rice is tender and creamy and a golden-brown skin has formed on top.
  4. If you prefer a creamier, looser pudding, stir the skin in once or twice during baking; for a firm skin, leave it undisturbed.
  5. Remove the bay leaf and serve warm, on its own or with a spoonful of jam.

Notes

A split vanilla pod, a strip of lemon zest, or a cinnamon stick can join the bay leaf in the milk. For a richer pudding use part cream; for a lighter one, all milk. The same bay infusion makes a beautiful baked custard or a stovetop creamed rice. Use only true bay (Laurus nobilis).

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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