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Dessert

Graham Popovers

A quick baked popover made with whole wheat and all-purpose flour, milk, eggs, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Graham Popovers

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the salt and flours together.

  2. Gradually add the milk and then the melted butter.

  3. Beat the eggs separately and add them to the mixture.

  4. Beat for 2 minutes using a hand mixer.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a hot gourmet pan.

  2. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes without opening the oven door for the first 15 minutes.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

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

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the risen popovers together.
Whole wheat flour
Adds a nutty flavor and some extra structure alongside the all-purpose flour.
Eggs
Set the structure and help the popovers rise as steam expands the batter.
Milk
Adds moisture and keeps the batter loose enough to rise well.
Melted butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the batter.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into a hot pan. The batter needs an immediate burst of heat to turn its moisture into steam quickly. That steam pushes the batter up and creates the hollow, tall popover shape, so a cold pan can lead to flat results.

“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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