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Dessert

Graham Cake

A simple cake made with sugar, butter, egg, milk, baking soda, salt, nutmeg or lemon peel, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Graham Cake

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 Cake

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 batter

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix together the sugar and butter until well combined.

  3. Add the egg and beat lightly until smooth.

  4. In another bowl, dissolve the baking soda in the milk.

  5. Add the dissolved milk to the mixture and stir in the salt and spice.

  6. Gradually add the flour, stirring until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until golden and a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour 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 structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the milk. Baking soda needs moisture and time to dissolve evenly; uneven dissolving leaves pockets of soda that cause bitter spots or uneven rising. Adding it to the milk before the batter ensures it spreads through the mixture.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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