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Dessert

Graham Pudding

A steamed pudding made with graham flour, milk, molasses, raisins, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 large bowl, mix the milk, molasses, egg, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Add the graham flour, sugar, and raisins, and mix until well combined.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for three hours.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Forms the bulk of the structure and gives the pudding its hearty, wholesome texture.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a rich, slightly bitter sweetness.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the pudding's structure as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the pudding moist and tender.
Raisins
Add pockets of chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for three hours. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the batter through without drying it out. Letting the water boil dry or the steam drop can leave the pudding dense or underdone in the center.

“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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