Cabinet Pudding, Iced
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the sponge cake slices in brandy.
Layer dried cherries and ratafias in the bottom of a mould.
Assemble and freeze
Add a layer of soaked sponge cake, then alternate layers of ratafias, cherries, and sponge cake until the mould is full.
Pour custard over the layers to fill the mould.
Close the mould and freeze.
Serve
When ready to serve, turn out the pudding and pour additional custard over it.
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
What each ingredient does
- Stale sponge cake
- Forms the bulk of the pudding and soaks up custard and brandy to hold its shape.
- Brandy
- Softens the sponge cake and adds a warm, aromatic flavour.
- Custard
- Binds the layers together and provides moisture and richness as it sets.
- Ratafias
- Add a crisp, almond-like sweetness and texture between the cake layers.
- Dried cherries
- Add concentrated sweetness, chew and fruity acidity between the layers.
The step that matters
Pour custard over the layers to fill the mould. The custard must reach every gap so the sponge cake is fully moistened and the pudding sets as one solid mass when frozen. Air pockets left behind can cause uneven texture and unstable turning out.
“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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