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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding, Cold

A chilled gelatin pudding made with milk, lemon rind, sugar, candied fruits, macaroons, Savoy biscuits, and a touch of brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and biscuit match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 697 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding, Cold

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in 2 tablespoons of water.

  2. Combine the soaked gelatine, milk, lemon rind, and sugar in a saucepan.

Make the milk mixture

  1. Boil while stirring until the gelatine dissolves.

Assemble and set

  1. Oil a round mold and layer it with candied fruits, crumbled macaroons, and Savoy biscuits.

  2. Add a little brandy and fill the mold with the milk mixture.

  3. Let it stand in a cool place until firm, about 5 to 6 hours.

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. Lemon + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

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

  5. Milk + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,332 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the milk mixture into a firm, sliceable pudding as it cools.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that the gelatine sets.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the milk and lemon.
Lemon rind
Adds bright citrus aroma to the milk mixture.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine completely before filling the mold. Gelatine only sets when it is fully dissolved and evenly distributed in the liquid. Undissolved granules can leave the pudding gritty or create weak, uneven patches as it cools.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, biscuit, brandy. 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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