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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A baked pudding made with raisins, suet, molasses, milk, apples, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine raisins, suet, molasses, milk, and chopped apples.

  2. Stir in baking soda and enough flour to achieve a thick cake batter consistency.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for three hours.

  2. Serve with lemon 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 + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Raisin + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture to the steamed pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Molasses
Adds dark color, deep sweetness and moisture to the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it cooks.
Apples
Add moisture and fruit flavor throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Stir in baking soda and flour to a thick cake batter consistency. Baking soda needs an acid such as molasses to react and lift the batter. The flour amount sets the texture: too little leaves the pudding loose and wet, too much makes it dense.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, molasses, milk, flour):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, molasses, milk, flour. 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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