Why it works: Angelica and biscuit share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 69 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Cabinet Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mold
Butter the inside of a 1½ pint mold.
Decorate the bottom of the mold with cherries or raisins and angelica.
Break the finger biscuits into pieces and fill the mold partly with them and the ratafias.
Make the custard
In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, egg whites, and sugar until light.
Gradually stir in the milk.
Add the essence of vanilla and mix well.
Pour the mixture over the cakes in the mold.
Steam and serve
Cover the top of the mold with buttered paper.
Place the mold in a saucepan half full of boiling water.
Steam for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Carefully turn the pudding out onto a hot dish to serve.
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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Angelica + biscuittop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together69 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Angelica + vanillatop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together170 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Set the custard into a firm, sliceable pudding as they cook.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that the eggs set in, giving the custard its body.
- Finger biscuits
- Soak up the custard and form the soft, cake-like body of the pudding.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps it whisk to a light texture.
The step that matters
Steam and serve. Steaming gently at a simmering temperature lets the egg custard set evenly without curdling or becoming rubbery. Boiling water that is too vigorous can leave the texture porous. Let the pudding rest briefly before turning it out so it holds its shape.
Swap the angelica
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, biscuit, sugar, egg, milk, vanilla, butter):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Capersfits about as well
- Angelicathe original
Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, biscuit, sugar, egg, milk, vanilla, 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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