Gordon Ramsay’s pudding recipes cover everything from a 6-hour steamed christmas pudding to a no-bake summer pudding that needs nothing but berries and bread. Each one uses a different technique, a different set of flavours, and a different level of effort, so there is always one that fits whatever mood you are in.
I have made every recipe on this list at least twice, and the ones I keep coming back to are the sticky toffee pudding and the bread and butter pudding. I listed them from the most popular to the smallest so you can pick what suits the occasion.
1. Sticky Toffee Pudding
The most searched pudding recipe on the site, where dates get pureed with bicarbonate of soda and folded into individual sponges that bake at 175°C (350°F) for just 17 to 19 minutes. The bourbon toffee sauce gets poured over the top while everything is still hot.
This is the one Gordon is most famous for, appearing on his restaurant menus, MasterChef, and Hell’s Kitchen. If you only make one pudding from this list, make this one.
2. Yorkshire Pudding
Four ingredients: flour, eggs, milk, and salt, with smoking hot fat in the tin and one rule: never open the oven door. Gordon says to treat them like a soufflé, because even a quick peek lets the heat out and they collapse.
These go with roast beef and gravy, but once I got the recipe down I started putting them next to everything. The horseradish variation from his restaurant is worth trying if you want something with a bit more bite.
3. Bread and Butter Pudding
Ramsay swaps standard sliced bread for croissants or brioche, soaks them in a vanilla custard with orange zest, and finishes the whole thing with an apricot jam glaze. It bakes at 180°C (350°F) for 35 to 40 minutes and serves 6.
This was Ramsay’s favourite pudding growing up, and his version takes the humble original and makes it feel like something from a restaurant. The Baileys variation is a crowd favourite too.
4. Fragrant Spiced Rice Pudding
Not the plain white rice pudding from school, but a fragrant version where Gordon toasts cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon, then cooks the rice in coconut milk with lime zest. Mascarpone and egg yolks get folded through at the end before 10 minutes in the oven.
This is from his Ultimate Cookery Course and it tastes more like a Thai dessert than a British one. The chai spice mix and the coconut milk change everything.
5. Chocolate Fondant
A chocolate cake with a liquid molten centre that runs out when you cut into it, baked at 200°C (400°F) for only 10 to 12 minutes. Ramsay calls it the best selling dessert across all his restaurants.
You can make the batter a full day ahead and keep it in the fridge, or freeze the filled moulds for up to a month and bake them straight from frozen. That makes this perfect for dinner parties.
6. Christmas Pudding
Dried fruit soaked overnight in Guinness, mixed with breadcrumbs and spices, then steamed for 6 hours with most of that time being completely hands-off. Make it on Stir-Up Sunday and store it in a cool place until Christmas Day.
The Guinness gives it a malty depth that brandy alone cannot match. It keeps for up to a year in a cool place, and the flavour only gets better with time.
7. Apple Pudding
Sliced Bramley apples baked under a light sponge at 180°C (350°F) for 35 to 40 minutes, also called Eve’s pudding. The sponge goes golden on top while the apples turn soft and tart underneath, and you serve it with warm custard.
This is the easiest recipe on the list and the best one for autumn when Bramleys are in season. My nan made something almost identical every Sunday.
8. Banana Pudding
A baked banana sponge from Gordon’s restaurant menu, not the American layered version with vanilla wafers. The banana gets mashed into the batter, bakes in two stages (10 minutes hot, then an hour at a lower temperature), and gets drenched in a dark toffee sauce.
It tastes like a cross between banana bread and sticky toffee pudding, and the two-temperature baking method keeps the inside moist while the outside sets.
9. Summer Pudding
The only no-bake pudding on the list: you line a bowl with day-old white bread, fill it with gently stewed summer berries, and press it overnight in the fridge. The juice soaks through the bread and stains the whole thing deep red when you turn it out the next day.
I make this between June and September when berries are cheap. It is the lightest pudding in the collection and the perfect finish to a summer barbecue.
