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Dessert

A Cabinet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with soaked sponge cakes, ratafias, custard, and a white wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the sponge cakes and ratafias in sweet wine.

  2. Make a custard as for baking.

  3. Butter a mold and place dried cherries all over it.

Steam the pudding

  1. Add the soaked cakes and pour the custard over them.

  2. Cover with buttered paper, tie it down, and steam for 1 hour.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, beat the egg yolks, mix with cream, sugar, and white wine, and heat without boiling.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Wine + white winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Sponge cakes
Form the bulk of the pudding and soak up the wine for a moist, tender body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the custard so it sets softly when steamed and the sauce turns smooth.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the custard and sauce a smooth, velvety texture.
Ratafias
Add almond-like aroma and extra soaking absorbency to the pudding base.
Sweet wine
Moistens the cakes and adds sweetness and aroma to the pudding.

The step that matters

Heat the sauce without boiling. Egg yolks thicken as they warm but curdle and turn grainy if they get too hot. Heating gently keeps the sauce smooth and pourable.

“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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