Why it works: Biscuit and angelica share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 69 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Cabinet Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mold
Butter the inside of a 1.5 pint mold.
Decorate the bottom of the mold with cherries and pieces of angelica.
Break stale sponge finger biscuits into pieces and fill the mold with them and a few ratifias.
Make the custard
In a bowl, combine the yolks of 4 eggs and the whites of 2 eggs.
Add 1 ounce of caster sugar and lightly whip together.
Gradually stir in 1 pint of milk.
Add 15 drops of vanilla and mix well.
Pour the mixture over the biscuits in the mold.
Steam and serve
Cover the top with a piece of buttered paper.
Place the mold in a saucepan half full of boiling water and steam for 1 hour, ensuring the water does not rise to the top of the mold.
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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Biscuit + angelicatop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together69 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Angelica + vanillatop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together170 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than 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 as they cook, giving it structure and a rich, smooth body.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard, providing moisture that the biscuits soak up.
- Sponge finger biscuits
- Absorb the custard so the pudding holds together as it steams.
- Caster sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps the eggs whip to a lighter texture.
The step that matters
Steam with the water below the top of the mold. If boiling water rises over the mold, it can seep in and make the custard watery and uneven. Gentle steaming sets the egg custard evenly without curdling it.
Swap the angelica
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, biscuit, sugar, vanilla, butter):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Capersfits about as well
- Angelicathe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, biscuit, sugar, vanilla, 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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