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Dessert

Graham Cakes

A simple cake made from Graham flour, all-purpose flour, butter, molasses, and leavening, baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Graham Cakes

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Graham Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine Graham flour and white flour without sifting.

  2. Rub in the butter or shortening until well mixed.

  3. Add molasses, cream of tartar, and baking soda; mix thoroughly.

  4. Gradually add milk or water to form a soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into cakes.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 300°F (150°C) until lightly browned.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter 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

Graham flour
Provides the coarse, nutty body and structure of the cake.
All-purpose flour
Supplies gluten to give the dough structure and a tender crumb.
Butter or shortening
Coats flour particles to add tenderness and a short texture.
Molasses
Adds moisture, sweetness, and a deep color to the cake.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with baking soda to help it rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the dough to release gas, helping it rise.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda and cream of tartar. These two must be mixed thoroughly into the dough so the acid and base react evenly. Uneven mixing leaves pockets of bitterness or uneven rising.

“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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