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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with candied fruit, sponge cake, custard, and baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

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

  2. Arrange small slices of candied fruit, raisins, or currants on the sides and bottom of the mold.

  3. Layer slices of sponge cake over the fruit.

  4. Fill the mold with alternating 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, ensuring the water comes halfway up the mold.

  2. Cook for about 45 minutes, testing with a knife to ensure no liquid adheres.

  3. Serve dusted with powdered sugar or with 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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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 the pudding holds its shape when cooked.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding moisture and softness to the cake.
Sponge cake
Absorbs the custard and forms the soft, tender body of the pudding.
Candied fruit, raisins, or currants
Add sweetness and chewy bursts of fruit throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds flavour to the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam in a water bath with the water halfway up the mold. Gentle, moist heat from the surrounding water cooks the custard evenly and prevents the eggs from curdling or the top from drying and becoming rubbery.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, 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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