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Dessert

Graham Gems

A cake made with Graham flour, white flour, lard, milk, eggs, sugar, baking powder, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Graham Gems

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the Graham flour, white flour, salt, and lard together.

  2. Add the warm milk and beaten egg yolks.

  3. Beat the egg whites with 2 teaspoons of sugar to a stiff foam.

  4. Stir the stiff foam into the batter.

  5. Add the baking powder.

Bake

  1. Heat the gem pans.

  2. Grease the pans.

  3. Pour the batter into the pans quickly.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until done.

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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Whites whipped to a stiff foam add lift and an airy, light crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the gems to rise in the oven.
Graham flour
Coarse bran and wheat particles give the gems a hearty, nutty texture.
White flour
Gluten provides structure so the gems hold their shape after rising.
Lard
Fat tenderises the crumb and adds richness and flavour.
Warm sweet milk
Liquid hydrates the flours and adds moisture and browning from its milk sugars.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into the pans quickly. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it is wet, and the stiff egg-white foam can deflate when stirred or left standing. Filling the hot pans without delay keeps the air and gas trapped so the gems rise well.

“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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