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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A layered custard pudding with sponge cakes, ratafias, macaroons, raisins, citron peel, dried cherries, and a sherry-flavored syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Butter a pudding mold and garnish with stoned raisins, sliced citron peel, and dried cherries.

  2. Fill the mold with alternate layers of sponge cakes, ratafias, macaroons, and the fruits.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, mix the yolks of 6 eggs, 2 whole eggs, sugar, milk, sherry or madeira, and grated lemon rind to make an uncooked custard.

  2. Pour the custard into the mold over the layered ingredients.

Cook and serve

  1. Simmer the pudding in nearly boiling water, ensuring it does not boil.

  2. Once done, turn it out and serve with ½ pint of syrup flavored with sherry or madeira.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard and give the pudding its firm, sliceable structure as they cook.
Sponge cakes
Form the absorbent body of the pudding that soaks up the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the eggs and milk.
Milk
Provides the liquid base of the custard, giving it a soft, tender texture.
Sherry or madeira
Adds aroma and a fortified wine flavor to the custard and syrup.

The step that matters

Simmer below boiling. Egg custard becomes grainy and spongy when it boils, because the proteins tighten too far and squeeze out water. Gentle, nearly boiling water cooks it evenly into a smooth, set custard.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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