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Cracker Gruel

A simple gruel made from cracker crumbs, water, milk, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cracker Gruel

Why it works: Sugar and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cracker Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Roll crackers on a board until fine to make crumbs.

  2. Mix salt and sugar with cracker crumbs.

Make the gruel

  1. Pour boiling water over the mixture.

  2. Add milk and simmer for 2 minutes. Do not strain.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Cracker crumbs
Their starch thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the gruel body.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the thin, watery base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the salt.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after adding the milk. Milk can scorch on the bottom of the pan or boil over at high heat. Gentle simmering lets the cracker starch thicken the liquid evenly without burning.

“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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