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Dessert

Graham Pudding

A sweet pudding made with molasses, sweet milk, egg, butter, raisins, nuts, graham flour, baking soda, and salt, cooked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix molasses, sweet milk, and egg until well combined.

  2. Stir in melted butter, chopped raisins, and chopped nuts.

  3. Roll the raisins and nuts in the graham flour, then add to the mixture.

  4. Add baking soda and salt, and mix until smooth.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a double boiler and cook for 2½ hours.

  2. Serve with lemon 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour 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 bulk and structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and a rich, moist texture.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set as it cooks.
Melted butter
Adds fat for moistness and a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses' acidity to lighten the pudding and help it rise.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a double boiler and cook for 2½ hours. Gentle, indirect heat from a double boiler cooks the batter slowly and evenly, so it sets without scorching on the bottom. Keeping the water steadily simmering rather than boiling hard prevents the pudding from becoming rough or overcooked at the edges.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

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