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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with cherries or raisins, angelica, sponge finger biscuits, ratafias, eggs, milk, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Angelica and biscuit share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 69 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Butter the inside of a 1½ pint mold.

  2. Decorate the bottom of the mold with cherries or raisins and pieces of angelica.

  3. Break the sponge finger biscuits into pieces and fill the mold partly with them and the ratafias.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks, egg whites, and sugar, and whip lightly.

  2. Gradually stir in the milk and add the essence of vanilla.

  3. Pour the mixture over the cakes in the mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover the top of the mold with a piece of buttered paper.

  2. Place the mold in a saucepan half full of boiling water and steam for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

  3. Ensure the water reaches halfway up the mold to prevent boiling over.

  4. Carefully turn the pudding out onto a hot dish to serve.

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. Angelica + biscuittop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Angelica + vanillatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Yolks and whites set the custard, giving the pudding its structure as it steams.
Milk
Provides the liquid that soaks the biscuits and forms the custard base.
Sponge finger biscuits
Absorb the custard and form the soft, cake-like body of the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the eggs and milk.
Cherries or raisins
Provide fruit flavour and sweetness in the decorated base of the pudding.

The step that matters

Ensure the water reaches halfway up the mold. Egg custard is delicate; if the water is too low the top may cook unevenly, and if the water boils too hard it can force liquid over the mold's rim. Gentle steaming sets the eggs evenly.

Swap the angelica

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, biscuit, sugar, egg, milk, vanilla, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Angelicathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, biscuit, sugar, egg, milk, vanilla, 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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