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Dessert

A Very Fine Cabinet Pudding

A custard pudding made with eggs, sugar, brandy, bitter almonds, cream, and flavored with vanilla or lemon rind, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

A Very Fine Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mould

  1. Butter thickly a mould of the same size as for the preceding pudding, and ornament it tastefully with dried cherries, or with the finest muscatel raisins opened and stoned.

  2. Lay lightly into it a quarter-pound of sponge biscuit cut in slices, and intermixed with an equal weight of ratifias.

Make the custard

  1. Sweeten with three ounces of sugar in lumps, and flavour highly with vanilla, or with the thin rind of half a fine lemon, and six sound bitter almonds bruised (should these be preferred), three-quarters of a pint, or rather more, of thin cream, or of cream and new milk mixed.

  2. Strain and pour this hot to the well-beaten yolks of six eggs and the whites of two.

  3. When the mixture is nearly cold, throw in gradually a wineglassful of good brandy.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour it gently, and by degrees, into the mould, and steam or boil the pudding very softly for an hour.

  2. Never omit a buttered paper over any sort of custard mixture.

  3. Remember that quick boiling will destroy the good appearance of this kind of pudding.

  4. Ensure the liquid is quite cold before adding to the cakes, or the butter on the mould would melt off.

  5. Serve it with well made wine sauce.

  6. Preserved ginger and candied citron in slices may be used to vary these, and the syrup of the former may be added to give flavour to the other ingredients.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

146Calories
7 gProtein
6 gFat
17 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Almond1 almond (1.2g)7
Brandynot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Brandy + almondtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,969 recipes

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

  3. Brandy + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks and whites set the custard into a firm, sliceable pudding as it steams.
Cream (in the method)
Adds richness and moisture, giving the custard a soft, smooth texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the eggs and cream.
Brandy
Adds aroma and warmth to the custard when stirred in once it has cooled.
Bitter almonds
Contribute a distinctive almond aroma and flavour to the custard.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding very softly. Eggs set gently at low heat. Quick boiling makes the custard bubble and become porous, spoiling its smooth appearance and texture.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy, almond, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, almond, 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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