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
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Butter a mold with straight sides.
Layer the stale sponge cake or Savoy biscuits in the mold.
Make the custard
In a bowl, whisk together the milk, egg yolks, egg whites, caster sugar, and vanilla.
Pour the mixture over the layered biscuits.
Add ratafia biscuits on top and let it soak for a while.
Bake and serve
Place in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.
Once cooled, decorate with cherries and angelica before serving.
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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Vanilla + angelicatop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together170 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Biscuit + vanillatop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together422 recipes
Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).
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
- Egg yolks and whites set the custard, holding the pudding together when baked.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that softens the biscuits and forms the custard base.
- Stale sponge cake or savoy biscuits
- Forms the body of the pudding, soaking up the custard as it bakes.
- Ratafia biscuits
- Add almond-like flavour and soften as they soak in the custard.
The step that matters
Baking until just set. Eggs thicken as they heat, but overbaking makes the custard curdle and turn rubbery. Removing the pudding once it is just set keeps it smooth and tender.
Swap the angelica
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, milk, egg, sugar, vanilla):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Angelicathe original
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, milk, egg, sugar, vanilla. 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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