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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with stale cake, jam, eggs, milk, and vanilla, topped with a butter‑sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pudding

  1. Butter a mold and fill it with alternate layers of stale cake and jam.

  2. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and vanilla extract.

  3. Pour the egg mixture over the layers in the mold.

Steam and make the sauce

  1. Steam the pudding for 30 minutes.

  2. For the sauce, cream the butter and powdered sugar together, then add vanilla extract and gradually mix in the milk.

  3. Place the sauce in a double boiler and stir until creamy.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Stale cake
Forms the bulk and absorbs the egg custard as the pudding sets.
Eggs
Set the custard when heated, giving the pudding its structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the egg mixture into a custard.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour between the cake layers.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Pour the egg mixture over the layers in the mold. The custard must soak evenly through the cake so the pudding sets uniformly; dry patches of cake stay spongy and uneven after steaming.

“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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