Name: Cabinet Pudding
Ingredients: 4 slices of Allinson bread, toasted; 1½ pints of milk; 3 eggs; 1 oz. of butter; sugar to taste; 2 oz. of chopped almonds; 1 teacupful of mixed currants and sultanas; flavoring (cinnamon, lemon, vanilla, or almond essence)

Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Crush the toast in your hands and soak it in the milk.
Whip the eggs, melt the butter, and add both to the soaked toast.
Thoroughly mix all the ingredients together.

Bake

Butter a pie dish and pour the pudding mixture into it.
Dot a few bits of butter on top and bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

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.

Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,514 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Toasted bread: Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the milk and egg mixture.
Milk: Provides the liquid that softens the bread and sets with the eggs into a custard.
Eggs: Bind the pudding and help it set firm as it bakes.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture, and browns on the top as it bakes.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to balance the eggs and milk.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, butter, sugar, almond, cinnamon):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Raisinfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, butter, sugar, almond, cinnamon. 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.