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Dessert

Frozen Cabinet-pudding

A chilled custard pudding with fruit, cake, and gelatin, molded and frozen.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Frozen Cabinet-pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve gelatin in hot water and keep warm.

  2. In a saucepan, combine egg yolks, sugar, cream, and flavoring.

  3. Cut citron into leaf shapes and prepare other fruits in small dice.

Assemble the mold

  1. Make wreaths with citron and cherries in a 3‑pint tin mold, using cold butter to secure them.

  2. Line the mold with sponge cake pieces against the fruit.

  3. Fill the mold with alternating layers of cake and fruit, leaving half an inch from the top.

  4. Cut a piece of cake to fit over the top and place it on the filled mold.

Custard, seal and freeze

  1. Heat the custard mixture until it thickens, then stir in the gelatin and strain it into the mold.

  2. Once cooled slightly, cover with the top slice of cake and seal the mold with buttered cloth or thick paper.

  3. Pack the mold for freezing and freeze for 4 hours.

  4. Turn out the pudding before serving.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Pineapple + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 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

Egg yolks
Thickens the custard and adds richness as they set with heat.
Cream
Provides fat and body, giving the frozen pudding a smooth, rich texture.
Gelatine
Sets the custard so the pudding holds its shape when unmolded.
White sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens the texture of the frozen dessert.
Sponge cake
Forms the structure of the mold, holding the layers together.

The step that matters

Heating the custard until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently; overheating can scramble them, leaving a grainy custard. Stir the gelatin in while the custard is still warm so it dissolves evenly before straining into the mold.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cream, butter. 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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