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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with stale sponge cake, dried fruit, spices, custard, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Butter the inside of a pudding mold.

  2. Sprinkle some chopped fruit on the bottom of the mold.

  3. Layer slices of stale sponge cake over the fruit.

  4. Sprinkle spices (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg) over the cake.

  5. Add more fruit and cake layers until the mold is nearly full.

Soak and steam

  1. In a bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, salt, and melted butter.

  2. Pour the custard mixture over the cake layers without cooking.

  3. Let it stand and soak for 1 hour.

  4. Steam the pudding for 1.5 hours.

  5. Serve with wine sauce or custard.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale sponge cake
Provides the bulk and structure that holds the custard as the pudding sets.
Eggs
Set the custard as it steams, giving the pudding a firm, sliceable body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that soaks into the cake layers.
Dried fruit
Adds chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a softer, more tender custard.

The step that matters

Let it stand and soak for 1 hour. The cake must absorb the custard before steaming. Dry pockets left unsoaked will not set evenly and can leave the pudding patchy or crumbly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, milk, egg, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, milk, 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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