The Creamiest Baked Old Fashioned Rice Pudding (Aunt Mae’s Secret Recipe)

The Creamiest Baked Old Fashioned Rice Pudding is otherwise known as Aunt Mae’s Rice Pudding – Diana’s Version. It’s based on my great-aunt’s recipe, with my own twists. Her recipe was just like many old-fashioned recipes that get passed down – sketchy on instructions and sometimes with ingredients or details purposely left out. I took her recipe and put my own spin on it. Read more about it below, or jump to the recipe. Either way, this is THE rice pudding recipe you will want to have in your arsenal. It can be halved if you aren’t looking for a large batch, but I recommend making the full batch and sharing. But be forewarned – they’ll be coming back again and again for more! (See Frequently Asked Questions section for notes about making half a batch).

Note that this will take some time – 3-4 hours or so (for the full 7-quart recipe), but at least half of that is in the oven. The half batch is much quicker. Don’t be alarmed, though – I promise this recipe is worth the time! This creamy, old-fashioned rice pudding is the perfect make-ahead dessert, which makes it totally stress-free for entertaining! It’s also fairly cheap, costing less than $15 to make, and feeds a crowd – plus, if you are lucky, there will be leftovers for you later! It is a great potluck dish as well!

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Aunt Mae’s Creamy, Baked, Old-Fashioned Rice Pudding

My Aunt Mae was a woman who took her recipes seriously. She spent her career running a catering business, and when she finally sold it, the recipes went with it — all of them, locked away, never to be shared with family, no matter how many times we asked.

But there were two things she made for every single family gathering, year after year, without fail: her angel food cake, and her rice pudding. Both became the kind of food you stop thinking of as food and start thinking of as home. As just the way things are supposed to taste.

She’s been gone for a few years now. When I finally got a copy of her rice pudding recipe, I held onto it like it was something precious — because it was.

The recipe itself was classically Aunt Mae: confident and a little maddening. Soak the rice overnight in cream and milk. Cook on low, stirring often, until thick. Can also bake in a low oven. That was it. No times. No temperatures. Just the quiet assumption that you’d figure it out.

The day I finally sat down to try it, I didn’t have room in the fridge to soak the rice overnight, so I winged it. I wasn’t sure what I’d end up with. But when my mom tasted it, she went quiet for a second — and then said it was creamier and even better than her aunt’s original.

I’ll take it.

Tools

a 9-quart Dutch Oven, such as Le Creuset or Staub

A wooden spoon

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A few notes on ingredients

• Medium grain white rice — Short grain has more starch; long grain has less. Medium grain hits the sweet spot and is easier to find. Do not rinse it — you want that starch.
• Whole milk — I haven’t tried this with lower-fat milk, and I don’t plan to. It’s a dessert, the servings are small, and the whole point is the creaminess. Go full fat and enjoy every bite.
• Heavy cream — Don’t swap in light cream or half-and-half. The heavy cream is what makes this feel like a hug in a bowl.
• Sugar — Plain white granulated. It doesn’t take much — the finished pudding is only lightly sweetened, which lets everything else shine.
• Salt — Just a pinch, but please don’t skip it. Salt has a way of making everything taste more like itself.
• Pure vanilla extract — I measure this with my heart. Start small, taste as you go, and stop when it smells like home.
• Cinnamon — My great-aunt always served hers with a sprinkle on top, so that’s how I grew up eating it. My husband skips it. There’s no wrong answer, but there is my answer.

Quantities

• 2 cups medium-grain white rice
• 1 gallon whole milk
• 1 quart heavy cream
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1½ cups sugar
• 2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract, divided
• Cinnamon, for serving

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 300°F. In a 9-quart heavy Dutch oven, combine the rice, milk, salt, sugar, and 1 tablespoon of the vanilla. Stir to combine, cover, and place in the oven.

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For the first hour and a half, stir carefully every 30 minutes. Then set a timer and stir every 15 minutes for another 30 minutes — you’ll start to see it coming together.

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Move the pot to the stovetop over your lowest burner and take the lid off. You want barely any heat here — no bubbles, no shimmer, nothing approaching a simmer. Gradually stir in the heavy cream. From here, stir every 5 minutes for about an hour and a half, until the pudding is nearly fully thickened with just a little liquid left. It’ll look almost done before it actually is — keep going.

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Turn off the heat. Stir in the remaining tablespoon of vanilla and let it cool on the counter, stirring now and then. Once it’s no longer steaming, cover tightly and transfer to the fridge for several hours. It will thicken further as it chills, but should stay deeply, beautifully creamy.

Before serving, taste it. Add more vanilla if your heart says so. Sprinkle with cinnamon, if that’s how you grew up eating it.

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Do you have a family recipe you waited years to finally try? I’d love to hear about it!

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