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Dessert

Cabinet Pudding, Plain

A custard-based bread pudding with raisins, milk, eggs, and sugar, steamed until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding, Plain

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the raisins in half and remove the stones.

  2. Cut the crusts off the bread and divide each slice into strips 1 inch wide, tapering one end.

  3. Grease a basin well, decorate the bottom with raisins, and line it with the bread strips.

Make and steam the pudding

  1. Beat the eggs, then add the sugar, milk, and flavoring, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

  2. Cut the bread trimmings into dice, place them in the prepared basin, and pour the custard over them.

  3. Cover with greased paper and steam gently for about 1 hour.

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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs set the custard, holding the bread and milk together as the pudding cooks.
Milk
Forms the custard with the eggs, moistening the bread so it softens and becomes tender.
Bread
Absorbs the custard and forms the body of the pudding as it steams.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and dissolves into the milk and eggs before steaming.

The step that matters

Steam gently. Gentle steam heats the custard slowly so the eggs set into a smooth, tender pudding. Vigorous boiling can make the eggs curdle and the texture coarse and watery.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pecansfits less well
  4. Cocoafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, sugar, raisin. 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.

More bread pudding recipes

Apple 145Chocolate 53Brown 51Fruit 44Lemon 37Steamed 29 See all 1,021 →

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