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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, lemon peel, milk, bread crumbs, eggs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter a mold and line it with studded raisins.

  2. Boil the milk with a piece of lemon peel, then remove the peel.

  3. Pour the hot milk over the bread crumbs or bread and butter, and let it soak for 30 minutes.

Make and steam the pudding

  1. Add the eggs, currants, and mixed lemon and citron peel, then mix well.

  2. Pour the mixture into the mold, cover closely with buttered paper, and steam for 1 hour.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a firm, sliceable custard when steamed.
Milk
Provides the liquid that softens the bread and forms the custard base.
Bread crumbs or bread and butter
Absorb the milk and give the pudding its body and crumb structure.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture, and show on the top when unmolded.
Currants
Add sweetness and concentrated fruit flavour throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding gently and covered. Covering with buttered paper traps steam so the custard cooks evenly without drying the surface. Steaming at a gentle heat keeps the egg custard tender rather than curdled or rubbery.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, lemon, milk, bread, egg, butter):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, lemon, milk, bread, egg, butter. 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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