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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding, Plain

A steamed bread pudding made with milk, eggs, raisins, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding, Plain

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the raisins in half and remove the stones.

  2. Trim the crusts off the bread and cut each slice into strips one inch wide, tapering one end.

  3. Butter a basin well, decorate the bottom with raisins, and line it with the bread strips.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs, then add the sugar, milk, and flavoring, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

  2. Cut the bread trimmings into dice and add them to the prepared basin.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the custard mixture over the bread, cover with greased paper, and steam gently for one hour.

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 + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the custard and set it into a soft, sliceable texture as they cook.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and moistens the bread.
Bread
Provides the structure of the pudding, soaking up custard as it steams.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it taste rounded.
Raisins
Add pockets of chewy sweetness and fruitiness through the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam gently for one hour. Gentle steam heats the egg custard slowly so it sets evenly; too much heat makes the eggs curdle and the texture grainy or watery.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, sugar, raisin):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pecansfits less well
  4. Cocoafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, sugar, raisin. 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 bread pudding recipes

Apple 145Chocolate 53Brown 51Fruit 44Lemon 37Steamed 29 See all 1,021 →

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