“This is every bit as wonderful as it sounds,” Nigella Lawsons says of her Italian-inspired rice pudding cake that mixes British and Italian culture.
“The Italians like to stud their rice cake with candied peel, bake it in a tin lined with breadcrumbs or crushed amaretti, and eat it cold,” she explained. “I sprinkle mine with nutmeg, and serve it warm, most frequently with a jewel-bright jam sauce.”
Best served near room temperature, rather than hot, Nigella Lawson’s cake serves between eight to 12 slices. Ideal for a bite to eat in the winter evening after dinner. Here is how to make the cook’s delicious bake:
Rice pudding cake recipe
Ingredients:
- 150g arborio rice
- 700 ml full-fat milk
- A quarter teaspoon of fine sea salt
- One unwaxed lemon
- 75g soft unsalted butter (plus more for greasing tin)
- Three large eggs (at room temperature)
- 75g caster sugar
- Two tsp vanilla extract
- nutmeg (for grating)
For the sauce:
- 200g seedless raspberry jam
- Two x 15ml tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Method
1. Put the rice, milk and salt into a heavy-based saucepan and finely grate the zest of the lemon into the pan. Over a high heat, stir regularly until just below boiling point and then turn the heat down to low.
2. Cook the milk and rice on low heat for about 30 minutes, stirring now and again, until the rice is cooked and the milk is absorbed.
Nigella Lawson recommended keeping a close eye on the milk and rice to make sure it doesn’t boil and doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.
3. Take the pan off the heat, and stir in the 75g of butter until melted. Scrape the contents of the pan into a large bowl and leave for an hour to cool.
4. Once the rice and milk are at room temperature, preheat the oven to 160°C/140°C Fan/325° and butter an eight-inch springform cake tin.
5. Separate the eggs: one bowl of egg whites and another bowl of egg yolks. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and set aside. Add sugar to the yolks and whisk until pale and mousse-like.
6. Add vanilla extract and two teaspoons of lemon juice to the yolks and sugar, then gradually pour into cooled rice, folding it in well as you go.
7. Dollop a large spoonful of stiff egg whites into the rice bowl and stir briskly, then keep on adding and folding in egg whites, then put the mixture into a buttered tin.
8. Grate nutmeg over the mixture and bake for 45 minutes. Once baked, sit on a wire rack for an hour, till it’s slightly warm.
Nigella advises: “To ease the unmoulding, slip a small spatula all around the edges, unclip the tin, and transfer the cake, still on its base to a flat plate.”
9. Before serving, warm up the raspberry jam with lemon juice in a small saucepan that you can then drizzle onto the bake.
Nigella said the rice pudding cake is “also lovely [served] with poached fruit” if you would prefer, and while she’s not tried it herself, the cook “can’t help thinking it would be fabulous with a bit of golden syrup”.
Whether you choose to have the rice pudding cake with raspberry jam, poached fruit, or golden syrup, it’s sure to taste superbly delicious.
Nigella even endorsed the Italian way by eating any leftovers (should there be any!) cold the next day.
