Why it works: Peach and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 558 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Cabinet Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mold
Butter a quart mold well.
Line the bottom with raisins, citron, and apricots cut into fancy shapes.
Cover with slices of stale cake; add more raisins, citron, and apricots, alternating with cake, until within 1 inch of the top.
Make the custard
Scald the milk.
Beat the sugar and egg yolks until creamy.
Pour the boiling milk carefully over the egg mixture, stirring briskly.
Add vanilla or rum to taste.
Pour this mixture into the mold over the cake.
Cover the mold.
Bake and serve
Set the mold in a pan and pour cold water into the pan to the height of the mold.
Put the pan on the stove until the water comes to a boil, then transfer the pan to the oven and bake for 1 hour.
When done, turn the pudding out of the mold and serve.
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.
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Peach + vanillatop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together558 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together781 recipes
Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).
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Raisin + vanillatop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together782 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and vanilla 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 and enrich it, giving it a set, creamy texture.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard that sets around the cake and fruit.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps it stay tender when baked.
- Stale cake
- Soaks up the custard so the pudding holds together with a soft, moist crumb.
- Candied peaches or apricots
- Adds concentrated sweetness and chewy texture in pockets through the pudding.
The step that matters
Pour the boiling milk slowly while stirring. Adding hot milk gradually while whisking tempers the egg yolks, so they blend smoothly instead of scrambling into lumps before the custard sets.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, milk, peach, vanilla):
- Figfits better
- Apricotfits better
- Blueberryfits better
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, peach, vanilla. 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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