Forget the school slop – a true rice pudding is a rare treat

If I had a pound for every person who’s told me they hate rice pudding, I would be a rich woman. It might be the most hated dessert in Britain, and we have our school system to blame for it. The rice pudding that is ubiquitous (and seemingly generation-crossing) in British schools is offensively bland, inexplicably metallic and unbelievably gelatinous. Made with milk powder and water, never introduced even in passing to actual milk, then poured into a quadrant of a battered plastic tray, it is many people’s first dalliance with rice pudding and, understandably, their last.

I’m not sure its original incarnation would do much to persuade the deniers, either: in The Forme of Cury , a collection of recipes dating back to 1380, rice pudding was a savoury dish made with bone broth. It’s not until the 15th century that it was sweetened, when honey and, later, sugar were introduced.