Skip to main content
Dessert

Graham Cakes

A simple cake made with graham and white flour, butter, molasses, and leavening, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Graham Cakes

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Graham Cakes

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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift cream of tartar and baking soda into the white flour; do not sift the Graham flour.

  2. Rub the flours together well.

  3. Incorporate the butter or shortening thoroughly.

  4. Add milk or water gradually until the mixture is not too stiff.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into cakes.

  2. Bake in a quiet oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 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

Graham flour
Provides the coarse, nutty body and whole-grain texture of the cake.
White flour
Provides gluten structure so the cakes hold their shape when rolled and baked.
Butter or shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and gives a crumbly texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deep caramel flavor.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with baking soda to produce rising gas.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to leaven the cakes.

The step that matters

Sifting the leavening into the white flour only. Baking soda and cream of tartar must be evenly distributed to react uniformly; sifting them into the white flour and leaving out the coarse Graham flour keeps the bran from disturbing even distribution and helps the cakes rise evenly.

“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.

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesMolasses Sponge CakeMolasses Sponge Cake9 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes