Skip to main content
Dessert

Very Rich Cabinet Pudding

A rich dessert pudding made with dates, plums, raisins, currants, bread, biscuits, macaroons, almonds, and sweet wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Biscuit and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 388 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Very Rich Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mould

  1. Cut dates, plums, or raisins lengthwise and remove stones.

  2. Butter a mould and cover the bottom with fruit or preserved cherries.

  3. Cut light bread or muffins to fit the mould and cover the fruit with them.

Layer and soak

  1. Layer in currants, bread, Naples biscuits, or macaroons alternately, sprinkling with rasped citron, almonds, sugar, minced marrow, and fruit.

  2. Sprinkle with sweet wine and a little clove brandy.

Make the custard and bake

  1. Beat the eggs and mix with the cream, then gently pour into the mould, ensuring it is full.

  2. Cook in a bain-marie and serve with a rich sweet 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. Biscuit + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together388 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

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

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

  4. Dates + almondtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Plum + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs set the cream into a custard that holds the pudding together.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the custard, softening the bread and biscuits.
Light bread or muffins
Forms the soft body of the pudding, soaking up the custard as it sets.
Naples biscuits
Absorb the custard and wine, giving the pudding a tender, cake-like texture.
Sweet wine
Adds sweetness and aroma, and moistens the layers before baking.

The step that matters

Pour the custard gently until the mould is full. Pouring gently avoids trapping air and disturbing the layers, and a full mould lets the custard set evenly with the bread and biscuits rather than leaving a hollow or uneven pudding.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (dates, plum, raisin, butter, bread, biscuit, almond):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, plum, raisin, butter, bread, biscuit, 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.

More cabinet pudding recipes

Cold 16Sauce 10Royal Iced 3 See all 177 →

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesBaking Powder BiscuitBaking Powder Biscuit119 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipes