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Dessert

Steamed Graham Pudding

A steamed pudding made with graham flour, white flour, molasses, buttermilk, and spices, served hot with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Steamed Graham Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Sift together the graham flour, white flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves.

  2. Add the buttermilk and molasses to the dry ingredients and mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into 1-pound baking powder cans, filling them half full.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the cans in a kettle of boiling water and steam for 2 hours without removing the covers.

  2. Serve hot with 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Buttermilk + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Graham flour
Provides the coarse, hearty body and nutty flavour that define the pudding.
White flour
Adds structure and a lighter crumb alongside the graham flour.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour, and moisture.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.

The step that matters

Leave the covers on during steaming. Lifting the covers lets steam escape and the water and temperature drop, so the pudding may cook unevenly and turn out dense. Keeping the cans sealed holds steam around them for the full steaming time.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (buttermilk, molasses, flour, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against buttermilk, molasses, flour, cinnamon. 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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