Apple Honey Rice Pudding

A lot of people completely ignore rice puddings these days. It's likely a combination of this classic dessert feeling a bit old fashioned and (bad) memories of sloppy school rice pudding- where the only real flavour would come from that tiny blob of jam on top!

It's time to forget all that, because our baked rice pudding recipe is a pure dairy delight; decadently creamy and packed with baked apple, sweet honey and rich cinnamon flavours. If you haven't tried rice pudding for a long time then we highly recommend giving it a try! This recipe is very simple and requires minimal work and clean up!

Time to make 10-15 minutes – Time to bake 2 hours. This recipe will make 4-6 generous portions.

To make our Apple Honey Rice Pudding you will need:

• 25g of Unsalted Butter
• 130g of Pudding Rice
• 50g of Caster Sugar
• 800ml of Full Fat Milk
• 300ml of Double Cream
• 1 Tbsp of Original Just Bee Honey
• 1 Tsp of Vanilla Extract
• ½ Tsp of Ground Cinnamon
• 2 Green apples (We recommend Granny Smith)
• A little extra honey to drizzle on each serving

Step One: A little prep!

Preheat the oven to Gas mark 3 or 160c, reduce to 140c for a fan assisted oven. The pudding won't take long to prepare so it's important to get the oven on now!

Peel and core the apples, then chop them into small chunks. It is up to you how small you want the apple pieces but somewhere between 5-10mm is good.

Using the 25g lump of butter grease all around the inside of your roasting dish. Once you are done, break the remaining butter into little blobs and leave them in the bottom of the dish.

Step Two: To sweeten and spice!

Add the apple pieces to the roasting dish, then drizzle over a tablespoon of honey. Then sprinkle half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon over the apple too!

Step Three: All the creamy goodness!

Add the caster sugar to a mixing bowl, then add the milk and cream. Give that a mix with a fork or whisk until combined. Add a teaspoon of vanilla extract and stir that in too. Finally, add the pudding rice.

Step Four: Carefully does it!

Carefully pour the liquid mix from the bowl into the roasting dish. The apple pieces will bob around on the top which is normal and don't worry, they will end up all through the pudding as it starts to cook! You might need to use a spatula or spoon to get all the rice out of the bowl at the end too!

Once everything is in the dish use a fork to rake the rice around a little so it's evenly spread around the bottom of the dish. You have to do this by feel and don't worry about it too much, we just don't want to end up with a big pile of rice in the middle of the dish and none around the edges.

Step Five: Bake to perfection!

Pop the dish carefully on to the middle shelf of the oven, close the door and forget about it for a couple of hours! After two hours the pudding should be baked to perfection, soft and creamy with a nice golden skin on the top.

There is some debate about how firm a rice pudding should be, some people like it very runny, while others like it so firm you can almost slice it like a cake when it's cold! This recipe is somewhere in between, soft and moist- without being runny. If it seems too wet after the two hours, you can always return it to the oven for 10-20 minutes extra for a firmer texture.

Step Six: Serve and eat!

Once baked allow to cool for 10 minutes, when you first take it out of the oven it will be bubbling and boiling hot so be careful! Then simply spoon into pudding bowls or dessert glassware.

For the finishing touch, drizzle a teaspoon of your favourite Just Bee honey over the top of each serving. Whether you choose our Original Just Bee Honey, Valencia Orange (my personal favourite!) Lemon and Ginger or one of our limited edition flavours, they all work great with this recipe and taste amazing!