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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with layered English muffin slices, dried fruit, almonds, and a custard of eggs, milk, cream, sugar, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the English muffins into very thin slices.

  2. Place a layer of muffin slices in a well-buttered pudding dish.

  3. Add a layer of dried cherries, apricots, and blanched almonds on top.

  4. Repeat layering until all ingredients are used.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat together the eggs, egg yolks, sugar, milk, cream, and wine or cordial.

  2. Pour the mixture over the layered ingredients.

  3. Let the dish stand for 30 minutes before steaming.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the pudding dish in a saucepan filled with boiling water until two-thirds of the dish is covered.

  2. Steam for 1 hour, then carefully turn it out onto a serving dish.

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. Apricot + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Apricot + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

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

  4. Apricot + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  5. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

English muffins
Soak up the custard and form the soft, bread-based body of the pudding.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and smoothness to the custard through their fat and emulsifying power.
Cream
Adds fat for a rich, tender texture and helps keep the custard moist.
Dried cherries
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness and tartness.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds body to the pudding.

The step that matters

Pour the custard and let it stand before steaming. The muffin slices need time to soak up the liquid custard so the pudding cooks evenly and does not turn out with dry pockets. Gentle steaming, with the water kept below the rim of the dish, sets the eggs slowly so the custard stays smooth rather than curdled or rubbery.

“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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