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Dessert

Steamed Graham Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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. In a large bowl, combine graham flour, molasses, chopped suet, sweet milk, egg, baking soda, raisins, currants, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and salt, then mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam

  1. Steam for 2 to 2½ 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.

  1. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Graham flour
Forms the bulk of the pudding and gives it a coarse, hearty structure.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the batter.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender during steaming.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give the pudding its set structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the batter and help it rise.

The step that matters

Keeping the mold sealed and the water steaming. Steam is what cooks this batter, so the mold must be covered and the water kept at a steady simmer for the full time. If steam escapes or the water boils dry, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn dense or dry.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

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