Skip to main content
Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A layered custard cake with candied fruit, sponge cake or ladyfingers, and optional sherry, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mold

  1. Butter a mold well and decorate it with candied fruits.

  2. Arrange slices of sponge cake or lady fingers in the mold, dipping them lightly in sherry if desired.

  3. Layer the cake and fruit alternately.

Make and bake the custard

  1. In a bowl, mix the milk, egg yolks, and sugar to make a custard.

  2. Pour the custard over the layered cake and fruit in the mold.

  3. Place the mold in a pan of water and bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with wine 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. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a set custard as they cool and firm during baking.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and gives it a soft, creamy texture.
Sponge cake or lady fingers
Absorb the custard and hold their shape, giving the pudding its structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it brown lightly at the surface.

The step that matters

Baking in a water bath. Baking the mold in a pan of water moderates the heat around the custard. Gentle, even heat keeps egg proteins from overcooking, which would make the custard grainy or curdled.

“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.

More cabinet pudding recipes

Cold 16Sauce 10Royal Iced 3 See all 177 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes