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Dessert

Graham Pudding

A steamed pudding made with graham flour, raisins, milk, molasses, baking soda, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Graham Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift the graham flour to make it light, returning the bran to the flour.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in 1 tablespoon of milk, then add the remaining milk, molasses, and salt.

  3. Pour the mixture over the graham flour and beat well.

  4. Add the chopped raisins and pour the pudding into a buttered mold.

Steam

  1. Steam for 2 to 3 hours.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and milk 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

Graham flour
Provides the bulk and structure of the pudding, along with its nutty, coarse texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and its acidity activates the baking soda.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and baking soda to form a loose batter.
Chopped raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in milk first. Baking soda must be fully dissolved before mixing so it disperses evenly through the batter; clumps cause uneven rising and pockets of bitter, unreacted soda.

“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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