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Graham Gems

A quick baked bread made with graham flour, sour milk, baking soda, egg, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour 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. In a bowl, combine sour milk, baking soda, and egg.

  2. Add enough graham flour to create a stiff batter.

  3. Pour hot lard into the mixture and beat well.

Bake

  1. Preheat the pans until hot.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 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).

Milk and flour 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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce carbon dioxide, which makes the bread rise.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Graham flour
Forms the bulk of the batter, providing structure and the bread's coarse, nutty texture.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a richer texture.

The step that matters

Pour hot lard into the mixture and beat well. Beating the hot fat through the batter disperses it evenly, so the crumb bakes uniformly. Adding the baking soda and sour milk reaction gas before the batter sets helps the loaf 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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