Celebrity square meals: Jayne Middlemiss's rice pudding

Serves 8

I enjoy cooking, and I do a lot of fish, but recently I got into making puddings. Cakes can be tricky, and Nigella's recipes are really difficult - they just make me feel inadequate. My favourite chef is Jamie Oliver. I love him.

Pastry's tough too, as is most baking, to be honest. The thing is, I don't mind tricky things, but sometimes cooking can be so boring.

And that's kind of why I like this recipe - it's pretty easy and fairly quick to get it all going, then you just put it in the oven. It's great on cold evenings and if you've got a friend who's just split up with her boyfriend, it's the sort of thing you can take round. It'll make your arse big but never mind about that.

140g pudding rice
100g butter
115g caster sugar
1.3 litres milk
The seeds from one vanilla pod
A pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 180°C and fetch an ovenproof pan that has a lid. Pour in the milk, scrape in the vanilla seeds, then

add the salt, sugar and butter and bring to the boil. Next sprinkle in the rice, cover with the lid and pop it in the oven. It should take about 45 minutes or so, but check it every now and then to see if it's gone thick and creamy - I play it a bit by ear. When it's done, take it out, let it cool and then dive in.

That's the basic recpipe, but you don't have to stop there. You can add all sorts of things to vary it. You can stir through some crème fraîche, honey, syrup, jam or - my favourite - chopped apple and sultanas.

Jayne Middlemiss presents the final episode of 'The Games' tonight at 9pm on Channel 4