Name: Cabinet Pudding, Iced
Ingredients: stale sponge cake, sliced into ½ inch thick pieces; brandy, for soaking; dried cherries; ratafias; custard (see recipe No. 459)

Cabinet Pudding, Iced

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble

Soak the sponge cake slices in brandy.
Layer dried cherries and ratafias in the bottom of a mould.
Add a layer of soaked sponge cake, then alternate layers of ratafias, cherries, and sponge cake until the mould is full.
Pour custard over the layers to fill the mould.
Close the mould and freeze.

Serve

When ready to serve, turn out the pudding and pour additional custard over it.

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

What each ingredient does

Stale sponge cake: Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up brandy and custard to hold its shape.
Brandy: Adds aroma and moisture as it soaks into the sponge cake.
Custard: Adds moisture and richness, binding the layers together into a soft set.
Dried cherries: Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture between the layers.
Ratafias: Add a crisp, almond-like flavour and contrasting texture between the sponge layers.

“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.