Skip to main content
Dessert

Cold Cabinet Pudding

A chilled custard pudding with macaroons, ladyfingers, candied fruit, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cold Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Soak the gelatine in ½ cup of cold water.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together.

  3. Add 1 pint of milk.

  4. Heat the remaining milk in a double boiler until it bubbles.

  5. Add the egg mixture to the hot milk.

  6. Cook until it thickens.

  7. Remove from heat.

  8. Stir in the soaked gelatine and salt.

  9. Place the double boiler in cold water to cool the mixture.

  10. Add the vanilla.

Assemble in the mold

  1. Dip the candied fruit in the custard.

  2. Dot the bottom of a mold with the fruit.

  3. Pour custard over the fruit to a thickness of ⅓ inch.

  4. Soak the macaroons and lady fingers in the custard.

  5. Layer them in the mold.

  6. Repeat the process until all ingredients are used.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they cook with the milk.
Gelatine
Sets the cooled custard so it holds its shape when unmolded.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard.
Macaroons
Soak up custard and add structure and texture between the layers.
Lady fingers
Soak up custard and give the pudding structure and a soft texture.
Candied fruit
Adds sweetness and bright flavour and decorates the bottom of the mold.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the custard gets too hot it can curdle and turn grainy. Cook gently and stop once it coats a spoon.

“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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes