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Dessert

Steamed Graham Pudding

A steamed pudding made with graham flour, sweet milk, butter, raisins, currants, molasses or sugar, egg, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Graham Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine graham flour, sweet milk, melted butter, raisins, currants, molasses or sugar, egg, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, and salt, then mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 2 hours.

  2. Serve hot with liquid sherry wine sauce.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Forms the bulk of the batter and gives the pudding its hearty, slightly nutty body.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set firm during steaming.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture, and its acidity activates the baking soda.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, giving a tender crumb.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, butter, raisin, molasses, egg, clove):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, butter, raisin, molasses, egg, clove. 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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