Vanilla and nutmeg baked rice pudding

Method

1. Heat the oven to 150°C/130°C fan/gas 2. Grease a 1 litre ovenproof dish with the butter. Put the sugar, rice, milk, cream and bay leaf in a medium mixing bowl. Scrape out the seeds from the vanilla pod, then add the seeds and the scraped pod to the bowl and stir to combine. Pour into the prepared dish.
2. Sprinkle over the nutmeg, then bake in the oven for 2 hours 15 minutes. Once ready, there will be a brown skin on top of the pudding, and the rice will have swelled and become tender.
3. Make a hole in the pudding skin and remove the bay leaf and vanilla pod, then serve straightaway – with a dollop of jam if you want to.