Name: Graham Pudding
Ingredients: 1½ cups graham flour; 1 cup sweet milk; 1 cup chopped raisins; 1 cup molasses; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon ground cloves; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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

Make the batter

In a large bowl, combine graham flour, sweet milk, chopped raisins, molasses, baking soda, cloves, and cinnamon. Mix until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

Steam for two hours.
Serve warm with whipped cream.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,070 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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 the hearty, slightly nutty structure of the pudding.
Molasses: Adds moisture, dark sweetness and a deep flavour to the pudding.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Raisins: Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the pudding.
Sweet milk: Hydrates the flour and binds the batter into a moist mixture.

Swap the clove

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits about as well
Clovethe original
Allspicefits about as well

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