Name: Graham Pudding
Ingredients: 1½ cups graham flour; 1 cup molasses; 1 cup sweet milk; 1 cup chopped raisins; 1 tablespoon melted butter; 1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in hot water; 1 egg; Nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves to taste

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Graham Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, mix the graham flour, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves together thoroughly.
Add the molasses, sweet milk, chopped raisins, melted butter, and egg to the dry ingredients. Stir until well combined.

Steam

Pour the mixture into a greased steaming dish.
Steam for 2 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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, depth of flavor, and a dark color to the pudding.
Egg: Binds the batter together and helps give the pudding its set structure.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Raisins: Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.

“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.