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Graham Buns

A quick baked bun made with buttermilk, all-purpose flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and graham flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Graham Buns

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix buttermilk, baking soda, sugar, all-purpose flour, and salt.

  2. Add graham flour gradually until a stiff batter forms.

Bake

  1. Spoon the batter into hot gem pans.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk
Acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the buns rise and giving a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in buttermilk to release carbon dioxide, leavening the batter.
Graham flour
Forms the bulk of the stiff batter, providing structure and a hearty, nutty texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
All-purpose flour
Adds gluten-forming protein that gives the buns structure alongside the graham flour.

The step that matters

Spoon the batter into hot gem pans. Batter placed into a preheated pan begins setting and rising immediately, so the initial heat helps the buns form a crisp outside and a lighter interior. Cold pans slow this and can make the buns dense.

“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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