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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sponge buns, biscuits, ratafias, sherry, custard, and decorated with glace cherries and angelica.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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

  1. Butter a plain round mold.

  2. Decorate the mold with glace cherries and angelica.

Make the custard and fill the mold

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the milk.

  2. Pour the sugar-milk mixture over the beaten eggs.

  3. Fill the mold with slices of sponge buns mixed with ratafias and macaroon biscuits.

  4. Add the sherry to the custard.

  5. Strain the custard into the mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover the mold with greased paper.

  2. Steam gently for one hour.

  3. Let the pudding stand for two to three minutes.

  4. Turn the pudding out of the mold.

  5. Serve with German 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 + angelicatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  4. Biscuit + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Biscuit + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Coagulate when gently heated, setting the custard so the pudding holds its shape.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that sets around the sponge and biscuits.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, smoother texture to the custard.
Sponge buns
Soak up the custard and give the pudding its body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard.

The step that matters

Steam gently for one hour. Gentle heat lets the egg custard set evenly. Fierce boiling can make the eggs curdle and leave the pudding watery or pitted.

Swap the angelica

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Angelicathe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, biscuit, cream, sherry, 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.

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