Skip to main content
Dessert

Plain Cabinet Pudding

A steamed pudding made from diced bread crusts, milk, sugar, raisins, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Plain Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grease a basin well and decorate the bottom with raisins.

  2. Fill the basin with the diced bread crusts.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg, then add the milk and sugar to taste.

  2. Pour the mixture over the bread and let it soak for a while.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve with sweet sauce, raspberry, or lemon.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Bread + raisintop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,111 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crusts
Form the bulk of the pudding and soak up the custard to set into a soft texture.
Egg
Binds the milk and bread together and helps the pudding set as it steams.
Milk
Provides the liquid that soaks into the bread and forms the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the custard.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture over the bread and let it soak. The bread needs time to absorb the egg and milk custard evenly; if it stays dry in places, those spots will not set properly and the pudding will be patchy when steamed.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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

More bread pudding recipes

Apple 145Chocolate 53Brown 51Fruit 44Lemon 37Steamed 29 See all 1,021 →

You might also like

Soft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBread Crumb CakesBread Crumb Cakes30 recipesGingerbreadGingerbread25 recipes