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
Grease a mold or basin with butter.
Layer sponge cakes, ratafias, or macaroons in the mold.
Make and steam the pudding
In a bowl, mix egg yolks, milk or cream, sugar, brandy, and lemon rind until combined.
Pour the custard mixture into the mold, filling it up.
Cover the top with buttered parchment paper and tie a cloth tightly over it.
Steam for 1.5 hours in a large potato steamer or saucepan, with water reaching halfway up the mold.
Serve
Serve with custard or melted butter flavored with wine, rum, vanilla, pineapple, or preserves.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,127 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,738 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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 set it into a tender, sliceable pudding when steamed.
- Milk or cream
- Provides liquid for the custard and a rich, soft texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps give it a tender texture.
- Sponge cakes, ratafias, or macaroons
- Form the base layer that soaks up the custard and gives the pudding body.
- Brandy
- Adds aroma and flavor to the custard.
The step that matters
Steam at a gentle simmer with water halfway up the mold. Egg custard sets through gentle heat; boiling or a too-high steam can make the eggs curdle and turn the texture grainy or spongy. Keeping the water at halfway up the mold and the cloth tied tightly protects the custard while it cooks evenly.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, milk, sugar, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Apricotfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, milk, sugar, brandy. 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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