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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A layered pudding of fruit, sponge cake, and custard, steamed and served with wine sauce or custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Butter the inside of a pudding mold.

Layer and soak

  1. Layer the bottom with some chopped fruit.

  2. Add a layer of sponge cake slices.

  3. Sprinkle with cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

  4. Repeat layers of fruit and cake until the mold is nearly full.

  5. In a bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, salt, and melted butter.

  6. Pour the custard mixture over the cake layers.

  7. Let it stand and soak for 1 hour.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 1.5 hours.

  2. Serve with wine sauce or custard.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Sponge cake
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the custard to set into a soft, moist crumb.
Eggs
Bind the custard and set during steaming to give the pudding its firm, tender structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that soaks the cake and helps it set.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that contributes to a tender texture and flavor.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy moisture through the layers.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy moisture through the layers.

The step that matters

Letting the cake soak. The cake needs time to absorb the custard before steaming. Dry pockets left unsoaked will not set evenly, so the pudding can end up patchy in texture.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, raisin, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, milk, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, raisin, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, milk, egg. 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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