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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

Cabinet Pudding is a custard pudding with raisins, almonds, and optional flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the basin

  1. Stone the raisins and butter a basin, sticking the raisins all over it.

Make and cook the pudding

  1. Prepare a thick custard by mixing milk, eggs, grated bread, sugar, chopped almonds, and flavoring.

  2. Fill the basin with the custard mixture.

  3. Boil for 1.5 hours.

  4. Turn out the pudding; the raisins will be on the outside.

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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard so it holds its shape when turned out.
Grated bread
Thickens the milk and eggs into a body that holds together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and keeps the pudding moist.
Raisins
Form a decorative outer layer that shows once the pudding is turned out.

The step that matters

Boil for 1.5 hours. Heat must cook the egg-thickened custard through to a firm set. Too little time leaves it loose and unable to hold its shape when turned out.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, egg, bread, sugar, almond):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, egg, bread, sugar, almond. 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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