Why it works: Angelica and biscuit share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 69 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Cabinet Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mold
Grease a 1½ pint mold with your fingers.
Decorate the bottom of the mold with cherries or raisins, then with angelica.
Break the finger biscuits into pieces.
Fill the mold partly with the broken biscuits and the ratafias.
Make the custard
In a bowl, combine the yolks and 2 egg whites.
Add the sugar and whip lightly.
Gradually stir in the milk, then add the essence of vanilla and mix well.
Pour the mixture over the cake pieces in the mold.
Steam and serve
Cover the top of the mold with buttered paper.
Place the mold in a saucepan half full of boiling water.
Steam for 45 minutes to 1 hour, ensuring the water reaches halfway up the mold.
Carefully turn the pudding out onto a hot dish to serve.
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.
-
Angelica + biscuittop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together69 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
-
Angelica + vanillatop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together170 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
-
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Biscuit + vanillatop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together422 recipes
Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).
Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
- Their proteins set when heated, firming the custard into a sliceable pudding.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that, with the eggs, forms a soft custard around the biscuit pieces.
- Finger biscuits
- Dry sponge that soaks up the custard and forms the body of the pudding.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the eggs and milk.
The step that matters
Steam gently with water halfway up the mold. Gentle, even steam heat lets the egg custard set evenly. If the water is too low or boils too hard, the top can overcook, become watery or pitted, and the pudding may cook unevenly.
Swap the angelica
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, biscuit, sugar, vanilla, egg, milk):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Angelicathe original
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, biscuit, sugar, vanilla, egg, milk. 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.
More cabinet pudding recipes
You might also like
Baking Powder Biscuit119 recipes
Vanilla Ice Cream108 recipes
Sour Milk Biscuit27 recipes
Butter Biscuit8 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.