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Dessert

Graham Pudding

A steamed pudding made with graham flour, molasses, sweet milk, raisins, butter, egg, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Graham Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine graham flour, molasses, sweet milk, seeded raisins, melted butter, and egg.

  2. Add baking soda, cinnamon, ground cloves, and grated nutmeg; mix well.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold and steam for 3 hours.

  2. Serve with hard 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Graham flour
Forms the body of the pudding, giving it a coarse, hearty structure.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the batter.
Egg
Binds the ingredients together and helps set the pudding as it steams.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to lift the batter and lighten its texture.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Steaming for 3 hours. Steaming must be gentle and steady so the pudding cooks through evenly and stays moist. Letting the water boil dry or dropping its heat can leave the center dense or undercooked.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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