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Dessert

Graham Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Graham Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix molasses and butter until smooth. Add sweet milk and stir well.

  2. Gradually mix in graham flour, raisins, currants, and egg. Add baking soda, salt, and spices to taste.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 1½ hours.

  3. Serve with hard sauce or brandy 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep sweet flavor to the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, tender texture and smooth mixing.
Graham flour
Provides the main structure and a nutty, coarse texture.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give it structure as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for 1½ hours. Steam must stay steady and the mold must be sealed so the pudding cooks through evenly and stays moist. Letting the water boil dry or lifting the lid often can leave the center dense or underdone.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

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