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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A pudding made by layering cake slices with a beaten egg, sugar, milk, and lemon essence, then baking in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line a pudding pan with slices of pound cake or sponge cake.

  2. Beat the eggs with the sugar until well combined.

  3. Stir in the rich milk and add essence of lemon to taste.

  4. Pour the mixture into the pan with the cake.

Cook and serve

  1. Set the pan in a kettle of water and cook until set.

  2. Once cool, turn the pudding out onto a dish.

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

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Eggs
Set the custard, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable body as they cook.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it stay tender and smooth.
Rich milk
Supplies the liquid base and fat that make the custard creamy.
Pound cake or sponge cake
Forms the structure that holds the custard and absorbs some of its liquid.

The step that matters

Cooking the pan in water until set. Eggs set into a custard at moderate heat; cooking too hot or too long causes curdling and a grainy, weeping texture. A water bath moderates the heat so the custard sets gently.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk. 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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