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Dessert

Cold Cabinet Pudding

A chilled pudding made with sponge finger biscuits, ratafias, milk, egg yolks, gelatine, dried cherries, angelica, cream, vanilla, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Biscuit and angelica 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 ↓

Cold Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Decorate the bottom of a pint mold with dried cherries and pieces of angelica.

  2. Split the sponge biscuits in half and line the sides of the mold with them and the ratafias, alternating their arrangement.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with a wooden spoon until well mixed.

  2. Stir the milk into the egg yolks and pour the mixture into a jug.

  3. In a saucepan, boil water until it is half full, then remove from heat.

  4. Place the jug in the saucepan and stir the custard until it thickens to a cream-like consistency, ensuring it does not boil.

  5. In a small pan, melt the gelatine with a tablespoon of water over low heat.

  6. Once the custard thickens, remove the jug and let it cool, covering it with paper to keep dust out.

  7. Stir the melted gelatine into the custard until well combined.

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. Biscuit + angelicatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Angelica + vanillatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Biscuit + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together422 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they gently set with heat, giving it body and richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which thickens when combined with the yolks.
Gelatine
Sets the custard so it holds its shape when the pudding is unmolded.
Cream
Adds richness and a soft, smooth mouthfeel to the set pudding.
Sponge finger biscuits
Line the mold to give the pudding its structure and an absorbent, cake-like edge.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard without boiling. Egg yolks coagulate gradually at moderate heat; if the custard boils or heats too fast, the proteins tighten and it curdles and turns grainy instead of smooth and creamy.

Swap the angelica

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, milk, egg, cream, vanilla, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Angelicathe original
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, milk, egg, cream, vanilla, sugar. 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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