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Dessert

Muffin or Cabinet Pudding

A boiled or baked pudding made with soaked muffins, custard, fruit, and puff pastry edges.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Muffin or Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the muffins

  1. Cut the muffins in half and pour boiling milk over them to cover.

  2. Cover the vessel and let them soak until tender.

Make the custard

  1. Once cold, prepare a rich custard by whisking together the eggs, cream, sugar, chopped almonds, nutmeg, lemon peel, and ratafia or brandy.

Assemble and cook

  1. Butter a tin mold for boiling or a pie dish for baking.

  2. Layer dried cherries, green gages, apricots, or French plums in the dish, then cover with custard.

  3. Repeat layers until the dish is full.

  4. Use puff pastry around the edges.

  5. Securely tie the mold and boil for 1.5 hours, ensuring it does not float in the water.

  6. Add more water as needed.

  7. If baking, reduce the cooking time slightly.

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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Muffins
Soak until tender, forming the soft base that the custard sets into.
Eggs
Set the custard and give the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the fruit and brandy.
Dried cherries, green gages, apricots, french plums
Provide fruit flavor and moisture between the custard layers.

The step that matters

Boiling the mold without it floating. If the tied mold floats, the top cooks unevenly and the custard may not set properly. Keeping it submerged and topping up the water ensures even, gentle heat.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, cream, sugar, almond, nutmeg, brandy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, cream, sugar, almond, nutmeg, brandy. 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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