Gordon Ramsay Rice Pudding Recipe

Gordon Ramsay’s rice pudding is fragrant and spiced, made with coconut milk, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, vanilla and lime zest, then finished with egg yolks and mascarpone before baking. Nothing like the plain white stuff from a tin. Serves 4 to 6.

This comes from the Ultimate Cookery Course, where Ramsay says he “really got into the fragrance of chai tea when I was in India” and transferred those spices to rice pudding. He filmed the same recipe on YouTube (1.5 million views), where he says “I’ll guarantee you’ll never ever have had a rice pudding like this before.”

The step that takes this somewhere else is the mascarpone custard. After simmering the rice, Ramsay whisks two egg yolks with mascarpone and stirs it in off the heat. He calls it “almost like finishing the rice pudding in a delicious custard.” It thickens everything and adds a richness that cream alone can’t match.

Gordon Ramsay Rice Pudding

Recipe by Sophie LaneCourse: DessertCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy

Servings

6

servings

Prep time

10

minutes

Cooking time

25

minutes

Calories

420

kcal

Total time

35

minutes

From the Ultimate Cookery Course: pudding rice simmered in coconut milk and whole milk with toasted cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and vanilla, enriched with egg yolks and mascarpone, then baked at 200°C with lime zest on top.

Ingredients

• 2 cardamom pods, lightly crushed

• 1 vanilla pod, split and seeds scraped out

• 3 cloves

• ½ cinnamon stick, snapped in half

• 1 x 400ml tin coconut milk

• 4 tbsp caster sugar

• 600ml (2½ cups) whole milk

• 2 tbsp double cream (heavy cream)

• Zest of 1½ limes

• 225g (8 oz) pudding rice

• 2 egg yolks

• 2 heaped tbsp mascarpone cheese

Directions

• Toast the spices: Preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan / 400°F / Gas 6). Put the cardamom, vanilla pod and seeds, cloves and cinnamon into a hob-proof baking dish. Place over medium heat and toast for 2 minutes until aromatic.
• Simmer: Add the coconut milk, sugar, whole milk and cream. Bring slowly to the boil, stirring gently. Add the zest of 1 lime. Pour in the rice and mix well. Bring to the boil, reduce to a gentle simmer and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, stirring continuously. Don’t boil rapidly or the rice turns to mush.
• Enrich: Whisk the egg yolks and mascarpone together until smooth. Take the rice off the heat and stir the mixture in until well combined.
• Bake: Sprinkle the remaining lime zest over the top and place in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown on top and the rice is cooked through.

FAQs

Why does Ramsay toast the spices first?

Dry toasting in a hot pan for a few seconds draws out the essential oils and intensifies the fragrance. On the YouTube video Ramsay says it “draws out an even more powerful fragrance” than adding them raw.

He uses the same technique in the Ultimate Cookery Course chapter on spices. If you skip the toast, the cardamom and cinnamon still flavour the milk, but the difference is noticeable.

Should you wash the rice before making rice pudding?

No. Ramsay says specifically in the video “don’t wash it beforehand because the starch helps thicken the rice pudding in the oven.” Washing removes the surface starch that gives the pudding its creamy body. It’s the one exception to his technique for cooking rice, where washing is always the first step.

Use pudding rice, not basmati or long grain. Pudding rice is a short-grain variety with more starch, which is why it goes creamy instead of staying separate.

How is this different from a traditional rice pudding?

Completely different dish. Traditional British rice pudding uses just milk, sugar and a scrape of nutmeg, baked low and slow for hours. Ramsay’s version uses coconut milk, four different spices, lime zest, egg yolks and mascarpone, and bakes for only 15 to 20 minutes.

In Great British Pub Food he does have a classic version: 200g pudding rice, 600ml milk, sugar, simmered stovetop for 40 to 50 minutes, served with poached rhubarb and ginger. So if you want the plain comfort-food version, that recipe exists too.

Does Ramsay have other rice pudding variations?

Yes. On The F Word he makes a mango, lime and coconut rice pudding. That version simmers the rice in coconut milk with a vanilla pod for 20 minutes, then folds in double cream, toasted desiccated coconut and chopped mango. Topped with pistachios, more toasted coconut and fresh lime.

It’s a simpler recipe than the UCC version because there are no whole spices or egg yolks. The mango and lime do the heavy lifting instead. For something completely different, his other pudding recipes range from a no-bake summer pudding to a steamed Christmas sponge.