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Dessert

A Cold Cabinet Pudding

A pudding made with milk, bread crumbs, coconut, sugar, butter, salt, and eggs, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Cold Cabinet Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Scald the milk over boiling water.

  2. In a baking dish, combine the bread crumbs and coconut.

  3. Beat the eggs, then add the butter and salt.

Make and bake the pudding

  1. Pour the hot milk over the egg mixture, stir, and pour into the baking dish.

  2. Mix well, wipe the edge of the dish, and place it in a pan of hot water.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour, stirring thoroughly after 15 minutes.

  4. Check if the pudding is done by shaking the dish; if it doesn't move, remove it from the oven.

Cool and serve

  1. Let it cool before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Coconut + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs bind the custard and help it set as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the hot milk and give the pudding its body and soft texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs set into a custard.
Desiccated coconut
Adds flavour and a slightly chewy texture to the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps tenderise the custard.

The step that matters

Baking in a water bath. Placing the dish in hot water moderates the heat around it, so the eggs set gently. Too much direct heat can make the custard curdle or turn rubbery.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, sugar, butter, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, sugar, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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