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Dessert

Graham Gems

A light, sweet cake made with Graham flour, ice water, sugar, salt, and butter, baked in iron gem pans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Graham Gems

Oven, in the book's wordsA very quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Sift the Graham flour to make it light and combine it with the bran left in the sieve, salt, and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Heat the iron gem pans on the back of the stove.

Mix the batter

  1. Add the ice water to the dry ingredients and beat vigorously for 10 minutes.

  2. Place the gem pans in the oven to heat them.

  3. Beat the batter for an additional 5 minutes.

Bake

  1. Remove the pans from the oven.

  2. Add a small piece of butter to each compartment.

  3. Pour the batter into the pans.

  4. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

  5. Beat in 2 tablespoons of clean snow just before baking.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 main structure and a coarse, hearty texture from the bran.
Ice water
Supplies the moisture that hydrates the flour and forms the batter.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches flavor and helps the gems brown and release from the pans.
Clean snow (in the method)
Adds trapped air to lighten the batter and help the gems rise.
Sugar
Adds mild sweetness and helps the gems brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Beat in the snow just before baking. Snow adds air that gives lift, and that air escapes if the batter stands. Adding it last and baking straight away keeps the gems light.

“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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