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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding

A sweet pudding made with molasses, sweet milk, currants, suet, flour, and spices, boiled for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix molasses, sweet milk, currants, finely chopped suet, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, flour, and nutmeg until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered thin pudding mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the pudding for three to four hours.

  2. Serve hot with wine 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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the batter.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter and works with baking soda to help it rise.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding for three to four hours. The pudding must cook gently and steadily for the full time so the starch sets and the batter rises through and is cooked in the center. Letting the water boil dry or drop below a simmer can leave it dense or raw inside.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, cream, flour, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, cream, flour, nutmeg. 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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