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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A custard pudding made with sponge cakes, eggs, milk, sugar, and preserved fruit, steamed and served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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

  1. Grease a mold or basin with butter.

  2. Decorate the bottom and sides with preserved cherries, citron, and currants.

  3. Line the mold with sponge cakes and add trimmings and remaining fruit.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs with the sugar, then add the milk and mix well.

  2. For serving cold, dissolve ½ oz. vegetable isinglass in the milk when making the custard.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the mold, cover with greased paper, and steam slowly for 2 to 3 hours.

  2. Serve with sweet or German sauce, flavored with vanilla if desired.

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

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

  2. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Currant + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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 as they cook, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and keeps the pudding moist.
Sponge cakes
Soak up the custard and form the soft, absorbent body of the pudding.
Macaroons
Add almond flavor and a chewy, moist texture to the pudding.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the eggs set with a smooth texture.

The step that matters

Steam slowly for 2 to 3 hours. Gentle, low heat lets the egg custard set evenly without curdling or becoming watery and porous. Rushing with high heat can make the custard grainy or cause it to boil and break the structure.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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