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Dessert

Cold Cabinet Pudding

A layered custard pudding with sponge cake, candied fruit, raisins, and a vanilla or sherry custard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Cold Cabinet Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mold

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grease a quart pudding mold and cover the bottom with pieces of candied lemon and orange peel. Between each four diamonds, place a boiled seedless raisin.

  3. Cover the fruit with a layer of stale sponge cake, then add a layer of raisins or other dried candied fruits. Repeat with alternate layers of cake and fruit until the mold is full.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs with salt and sugar. Whisk in the lukewarm milk and pour this mixture into the mold.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the mold in a pan of hot water and let it simmer on the back of the stove for 1 hour.

  2. Transfer the pan and mold to the oven and bake for 1 hour.

  3. Let it cool, then surround it with ice.

  4. Serve with a cold rich custard sauce flavored with vanilla or sherry wine.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and set the pudding, while whites are used separately for structure.
Stale sponge cake
Soaks up the custard and holds the layers together as the pudding sets.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a smooth, tender texture.
Apple sauce
Adds moisture and mild sweetness, keeping the pudding soft and moist.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that sets around the cake and fruit.

The step that matters

Gentle water-bath cooking. Egg custard turns grainy or curdles if heated too fast. Simmering in hot water, rather than boiling, lets the eggs set evenly and keeps the pudding smooth.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, sauce, sugar, cinnamon, lemon, orange):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, sauce, sugar, cinnamon, lemon, orange. 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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