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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A custard pudding baked in a buttered melon mould, layered with sponge cake and candied fruit, served with lemon or wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mould

  1. Butter a melon mould and decorate it with candied fruit or boiled, seeded raisins.

  2. Layer ladies' fingers or stale sponge cake in the mould, adding pieces of fruit between layers until full.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with sugar and a little cold milk.

  2. Pour the boiling milk into the egg mixture and stir well.

  3. Pour the mixture over the cake in the mould.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for one hour.

  2. Serve with lemon or wine sauce.

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. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Melon + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Melon + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and bind it into a soft, set pudding as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving the pudding its moist, tender body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps give it a smooth, tender texture.
Ladies' fingers or stale sponge cake
Forms the absorbent base layers that soak up the custard as it sets.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling milk into the egg mixture gradually while stirring well. Adding hot milk to yolks all at once can scramble them. Stirring as the milk goes in tempers the yolks so the custard stays smooth and thickens evenly.

Swap the melon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Melonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, milk, egg, sugar, lemon. 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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