Skip to main content
Dessert

Graham Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sour milk, molasses, raisins, graham flour, baking soda, salt, and egg, served with a butter‑lemon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Graham Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Mix sour milk, molasses, raisins, graham flour, baking soda, salt, and egg until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into cans and steam for 1 hour.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Beat the egg for the sauce and mix with butter, lemon juice, and boiling water until smooth.

  2. Serve the pudding warm with the sauce.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 bulk and structure of the pudding, with a nutty, wholesome texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas, so the pudding rises and turns light.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and contributes to the pudding's rich flavour.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the pudding's crumb as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into cans and steam for 1 hour. The baking soda reacts with the sour milk right after mixing, so the batter should go into the cans promptly. Steaming must keep a steady gentle heat so the pudding cooks through and rises evenly without drying out.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, raisin, flour, egg, sauce, butter. 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.

More graham pudding recipes

Steamed 22Apple 3 See all 149 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipes