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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with layers of fruit, cake, custard, and served with jelly sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Grease a smooth, plain mold with cold butter.

  2. Line the sides and bottom with small slices of French candied fruit, raisins, or currants in desired shapes.

  3. Layer slices of puff pudding, cake, or sponge cake over the fruit.

  4. Fill the mold with alternate layers of fruit and cake.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and sugar to make a custard.

  2. Pour the custard over the layers in the mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the pudding in a kettle of water or a pan of water in the oven for about 45 minutes.

  2. Check for doneness by inserting a knife; if no liquid adheres, it is done.

  3. Serve with jelly sauce.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard so it holds the cake and fruit together as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, moistening the cake layers as it sets.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds to its tender texture.
Puff pudding, cake, or sponge cake
Provides the soft, absorbent body that soaks up custard and forms the layers.

The step that matters

Checking doneness with a knife. Egg custard sets gradually as its proteins coagulate; if it is pulled too early it stays loose, and if overcooked it turns grainy and watery. A knife that comes out clean shows the custard has set.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, milk, 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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