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Dessert

English Cabinet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, citron peel, sponge cake, macaroons, eggs, sugar, cream, and ratafias, served with boiled custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

English Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Grease a mold with butter.

  2. Place the raisins and ratafias over the bottom.

Layer and fill

  1. Layer sliced sponge cake or ladyfingers, then macaroons and citron peel.

  2. Beat together the eggs, sugar, and cream.

  3. Pour the mixture carefully into the mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover with buttered paper and steam for 1 hour.

  2. Turn out and serve with rich boiled custard flavored with almond.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard when steamed, binding the layers into a firm pudding.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the custard a soft, tender texture.
Sponge cakes
Form the soft base layers that soak up the custard as it steams.
Macaroons
Add chewy texture and almond flavor to the layers.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy bursts of fruit throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the eggs and cream.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture carefully into the mold. Pouring gently keeps the layers from shifting and trapping air pockets, so the custard sets evenly and the pudding holds its shape when turned out.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, sugar, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, sugar, 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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