Skip to main content
Dessert

Graham Gems

A quick baked cookie made with graham flour, molasses, butter, baking soda, sour milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Gems

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good 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, mix molasses, salt, butter, and baking soda until well combined.

  2. Add sour milk and graham flour, stirring until just mixed.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased gem pans, filling them halfway.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

Graham flour
Provides the bulk and structure that sets the gems as they bake.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas that makes the gems rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deep brown color to the batter.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the gems tender and adds rich flavor.

The step that matters

Stir the batter until just mixed. Overmixing the flour and milk develops gluten, which makes gems tough and dense. Baking soda starts reacting with the sour milk as soon as they combine, so the batter should go into the pans and oven promptly.

“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.

More graham gems recipes

Plain 9Cake 3 See all 152 →

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesMolasses Sponge CakeMolasses Sponge Cake9 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes