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Steamed Graham Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, sugar, sweet milk, raisins, and a sweet sauce of sugar, water, butter, vinegar, flour, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Steamed Graham Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, mix molasses, sugar, sweet milk, and baking soda.

  2. Stir in enough flour to make a stiff batter.

  3. Fold in the raisins.

  4. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and make the sauce

  1. Steam for 2 hours.

  2. For the sauce, combine sugar, water, butter, vinegar, and flour in a saucepan.

  3. Cook over medium heat until thickened.

  4. Stir in lemon juice or wine.

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + buttertop 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).

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

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep sweet flavor to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
Raisins
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for 2 hours. Steaming must stay gently and steadily boiling so the pudding cooks through evenly. If the water level drops or the steam weakens, the pudding turns dense and heavy.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, milk, flour, sauce, butter, vinegar. 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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