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Dessert

Cuban Pudding

A coconut and sponge cake pudding steamed with cream, sugar, eggs, and preserved ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,168 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cuban Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Combine the crumbled sponge cakes and grated coconut in a basin.

  2. Heat the cream with the sugar until boiling.

  3. Pour the hot cream over the cake mixture.

  4. Cover the basin and let it soak up the cream.

  5. Stir in the beaten eggs once the cream is absorbed.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a mold.

  2. Arrange the preserved ginger around the mold.

  3. Carefully pour the pudding mixture into the mold.

  4. Tie the mold down with a cloth.

  5. Steam or boil slowly for 1.5 hours.

  6. Warm the ginger syrup.

  7. Pour the warmed ginger syrup over the pudding.

  8. Serve.

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. Coconut + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Sponge cakes
Provide the bulk and soft crumb that the cream soaks into.
Grated coconut
Adds moisture, body and a rich coconut flavour to the pudding.
Rich cream
Moistens the cake and coconut and gives the pudding a tender, custardy texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during steaming to give the pudding its firm structure.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the cream and adds flavour to the pudding.
Preserved ginger
Contributes spicy sweetness and aroma, with its syrup adding extra flavour at serving.

The step that matters

Let the cake soak up the cream before adding the eggs. If the eggs go in while the cream is still free, the mixture stays loose and the custard may set unevenly or split during steaming. Waiting until the cake has absorbed the cream gives a uniform base that sets smoothly.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coconut, cream, sugar, egg, butter. 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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