Name: Steamed Graham Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup molasses; 1 cup Graham flour; 1 cup all-purpose flour; 1 cup sweet milk; 1 cup seeded raisins; 1 cup currants; 1 egg; 1 teaspoon baking soda

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

In a large bowl, combine molasses, Graham flour, all-purpose flour, sweet milk, raisins, currants, egg, and baking soda, and mix until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam

Steam for 2 hours.

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,155 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the batter.
Graham flour: Gives a coarser, nutty texture and body to the pudding.
All-purpose flour: Provides structure so the pudding holds its shape after steaming.
Egg: Binds the batter and helps set the pudding's structure.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Datesfits better
Currantthe original

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