Nigella Lawson's Rice Pudding Cake, as seen on the BBC2 series Cook, Eat, Repeat, is a comforting, British take on the Italian classic, torta di riso.

Nigella’s Semolina Pudding is a creamy dessert made with milk, semolina, vanilla sugar, and cinnamon. It is smooth, delicious, and toasty. Nigella Lawson popularized this soothing pudding recipe, hence the name. Enjoy it plain, with honey, or with fruit.

This rice pudding cake is every bit as wonderful as it sounds: an Italian torta di riso, refracted through the prism of someone who loves a bowl of very British rice pudding.

I feel better just contemplating this. You get the comfort of a syrup pudding steamed for many, many hours in 30 minutes. And you do practically nothing to make it: roll out half a packet of good shop-bought pastry, ooze golden syrup over it, roll it up like a swiss roll and bung it in a dish, throwing over some milk before putting it in the oven. You can eat it with either cream or ice cream: whatever, it is perfect Sunday lunch pudding, though there is a good case for making it any day of…

This is every bit as wonderful as it sounds: an Italian torta di riso, refracted through the prism of someone who loves a bowl of very British rice pudding. The Italians like to stud their rice cake with candied peel, bake it in a tin lined with breadcrumbs or crushed amaretti, and eat it cold; I sprinkle mine with nutmeg, and serve it warm, most frequently with a jewel-bright jam sauce. But it's also lovely with poached fruit and I can't help thinking it would be fabulous with a bit of…

This French rice pudding from the Normandy region is something special indeed. The simplest of ingredients belie the divine results. Rice, sugar, milk, cream and spices are added to an earthenware dish and it is baked for five hours which produces a caramelised brown crust on top and a soft, aromatic and milky rice pudding underneath.

Nigella's rice pudding cake is every bit as wonderful as it sounds.

I know a steamed pudding sounds stodgy, but I cannot tell you how glorious this is: light beyond words, feathery textured and comfortingly, not cloyingly, sweet. This is predicated on two things. You have to eat it up entirely while it’s warm (no hardship), as it will get heavy on cooling. And it needs to be balanced with custard or cream. There is also a good argument for vanilla ice cream. For US cup measures, use the toggle at the top of the ingredients list.

I long thought that carrot cake was an American invention, until I found out that an early version was made by Venetian Jews in the original ghetto. This modest disc is very different from the gargantuan US model with its rich sweet cream-cheese filling and topping, and although — apart from a glorious goldenness — it's not much to look at, it is divine to eat. It also has the added virtue of being attractive to those with dairy and gluten allergies: it came to me dairy free, and I decided…