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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sponge cake, raisins, citron, currants, eggs, milk, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Grease a pudding mold with butter.

  2. Sprinkle the bottom with chopped raisins, citron, and currants.

  3. Add a layer of sponge cake and sprinkle lightly with ground cinnamon and cloves.

  4. Repeat layering until the mold is almost full.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs until light.

  2. Mix in the milk, salt, and melted butter.

  3. Pour the mixture over the cake layers.

  4. Let it stand for one hour.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for one and a half hours.

  2. Serve with currant jelly sauce.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the milk and cake together and set into a firm, sliceable custard when steamed.
Sponge cake
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the custard as it stands.
Milk
Provides the liquid that, with the eggs, forms the custard.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture within the layers.
Currants
Add tart, concentrated fruit flavor and chewy texture within the layers.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender custard texture.

The step that matters

Let it stand for one hour. Standing lets the sponge cake absorb the egg and milk mixture before steaming. Skipping this rest can leave dry pockets of cake and an uneven, loose texture once the custard sets.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, raisin, cinnamon, clove, egg, milk. 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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