Recipe

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,

How to cook Stilton and broccoli bake

Finally, I almost have my kitchen back. I feel like during Christmas, we give our kitchens over to a higher power: one who insists that we fill our fridges with enough prosecco to see us through a nuclear winter, that everything is spiked with brandy, and followed with a chaser of cheese. We didn’t even host Christmas this year: we were away for Christmas-proper and bookended it with visiting various friends and relatives. There is, really, no excuse, for such a high proportion of festive leftovers. And yet, for the last week, I’ve found soggy mince pies everywhere, and brandy butter I don’t remember buying. But now, I am starting