Made By Us Thick & Creamy Rice Pudding Is Nearly Ready

There has been rather a lot of rice pudding eaten at The Milk Round Company over the last week.

In fact, while developing our new Made By Us Thick & Creamy Rice Pudding, the top button on our jeans appears to be getting progressively further away from the hole it's supposed to go through.

We’re calling that product development.

And, fortunately, it has been great fun.

Bringing some old favourites back to the doorstep

One of the things we want to do with our Made By Us range is bring some proper classics to the Milk Round.

Not everything needs reinventing.

Sometimes you just want something familiar, comforting and made properly — and rice pudding seemed like a very good place to start.

So we've been experimenting with our own 250g pots of thick, creamy rice pudding, making batches, tasting them, changing them and then — obviously — having to taste them all over again.

It's a difficult job.

How thick should a rice pudding actually be?

This has probably been the biggest question.

Some people love rice pudding really thick and creamy.

Others want more milk around the rice.

Then there's sweetness.

Some want plenty of sugar. Others prefer it much less sweet.

Add vanilla and nutmeg into the equation and suddenly something as simple as rice pudding has rather a lot of variables.

We've tried different cooking times, adjusted the liquid and experimented with the balance until we've started getting much closer to the pudding we want to put our name on.

Could we produce one 250g pot that absolutely everybody thinks is perfect?

That would be a miracle.

But we can develop the version that we believe works best for our Made By Us range.

And that's exactly what we're doing.

Made, batched and sold by us

This isn't a product we're buying from somebody else and putting into the Shop.

Our Made By Us range is exactly what the name says.

The rice pudding is made by The Milk Round Company, produced in batches and sold directly by us.

That also means we're responsible for getting it right.

Developing the recipe is only one part of it. We also have the production controls, batch identification, ingredient and allergen information, chilled storage and labelling that sit behind a food product being made properly and consistently.

Customers might only see the finished pot.

Behind that pot is a complete batch of work.

Why 250g?

We wanted this to feel like a proper dessert rather than a couple of spoonfuls at the bottom of a tiny container.

So we're developing it as a 250g pot.

Something you can actually sit down and enjoy.

Whether everybody chooses to eat the entire pot in one sitting is, of course, entirely their own business.

Given the amount we've eaten during testing, we're probably in no position to offer portion-control advice.

This is what we want Made By Us to become

Rice pudding is only the beginning of what we want the Made By Us name to represent.

The idea is to develop products ourselves, particularly some of those traditional favourites that deserve a place on a modern Milk Round.

Not mass-produced products pretending to be homemade.

Products we've actually worked on, made and tasted ourselves before we're prepared to sell them.

There will undoubtedly be recipes that need changing.

There will be batches where we decide something isn't quite right.

And there will apparently be quite a lot of compulsory tasting.

But that's part of the fun of developing the range.

The rice pudding is getting close

After a week of experimenting, we're getting there.

Thick. Creamy. Vanilla. Nutmeg. A proper 250g portion.

We're still refining that final balance because once it goes into the Made By Us range, we want it to be something we're happy to deliver to somebody's door.

We won't please every rice-pudding lover with exactly the same recipe.

Somebody will always want another spoonful of sugar.

Somebody else will want another splash of milk.

But we're going to settle on the version we think deserves to carry the Made By Us name.

And then?

It's all systems go. Made By Us Thick & Creamy Rice Pudding