Skip to main content
Dessert

Graham Pudding

A baked pudding made with graham flour, raisins, molasses, and a sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix together the butter, raisins, cinnamon, cloves, and graham flour.

  3. In another bowl, combine the molasses, baking soda, and sour milk.

  4. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry mixture until well combined.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake for about 30-40 minutes.

  2. For the sauce, combine the sugar, butter, hot water, vinegar, nutmeg, and cornstarch in a saucepan.

  3. Cook over medium heat until the sauce thickens, stirring constantly.

Serve

  1. Serve the pudding warm with the sauce drizzled on top.

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. Raisin + flourtop 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 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 bulk of the batter and gives the pudding its structure and hearty texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb in the pudding.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter as it bakes.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce as it cooks, giving it a glossy, pourable body.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce constantly over medium heat. Cornstarch thickens only when heated in liquid and can scorch or form lumps if left unstirred, so constant stirring keeps the sauce smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the clove

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

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

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

More graham pudding recipes

Steamed 22Apple 3 See all 149 →

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipes