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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with layers of ladyfingers or sponge cake, fruit, and a custard mixture, topped with raisins and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Grease a mold with butter and decorate the sides and bottom with boiled seeded raisins and chopped citron.

  2. Layer lady fingers or sponge cake, followed by fruit, and repeat until the mold is filled.

Make the custard and steam

  1. In a bowl, combine scalded milk, beaten eggs, sugar, salt, and flavoring.

  2. Pour the mixture over the layered cake in the mold.

  3. Steam for 1 hour for a 2-quart mold.

Serve

  1. Serve with a hot liquid 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 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

Eggs
Beaten eggs set the custard, holding the cake and fruit together as it steams.
Milk
Scalded milk forms the liquid base of the custard, giving it a soft, tender texture.
Lady fingers or sponge cake
Soaks up the custard as it steams, giving the pudding its body and structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds to its tender texture.

The step that matters

Steam for 1 hour for a 2-quart mold. Steaming gently heats the egg custard so it sets evenly. Too much heat or time can make the eggs curdle and turn the pudding rubbery or watery.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, egg, 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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