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
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mold
Butter a mold or basin for boiling the pudding.
Sprinkle the bottom with candied peel and raisins.
Layer thin slices of sponge cake on top.
Add a few drops of melted butter on each piece.
Scatter currants over the cake slices.
Repeat layering with sponge cake and currants until the dish is nearly full.
Make the custard
Flavor the milk with grated lemon peel.
Add the beaten eggs and sugar to the milk.
Beat the mixture thoroughly.
Strain the mixture into the mold until full.
Let the pudding stand for 2 hours.
Boil and serve
Cover tightly with a cloth.
Place the mold in boiling water.
Boil for 1 hour.
Allow it to stand for a few minutes after boiling before removing the cover.
Turn it out of the mold.
Serve with fruit sauce or wine sauce.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,742 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,155 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides 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, binding the milk into a soft, sliceable pudding structure.
- Sponge cake
- Forms the absorbent body of the pudding that soaks up the custard.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid custard base that cooks into a tender, creamy texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the eggs and milk.
- Raisins
- Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture scattered through the pudding.
- Candied peel
- Adds sweet, aromatic citrus flavor and chewy bits throughout the pudding.
The step that matters
Strain the mixture into the mold until full. Straining removes egg lumps so the custard sets smooth, and filling fully leaves no air gap that would collapse or cook unevenly.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, butter, milk, lemon, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Orangefits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, butter, milk, lemon, 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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