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Dessert

Graham Gems

A quick, sweet cookie made with graham flour, white flour, sugar, and butter, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift together the graham flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and white flour.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the sugar, salt, and milk, then stir into the flour mixture.

  3. Add the melted butter and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Drop a spoonful of the batter into each section of a gem pan.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 25 minutes and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

White flour
Provides the main structure that holds the gems together as they bake.
Graham flour
Adds a coarser texture and nutty, wheaten flavour to the gems.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to produce rising gas.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release carbon dioxide, lifting the gems.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and keeps the batter moist, helping it bake into a tender crumb.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the baked gems.

The step that matters

Combining the leavening with the batter. Cream of tartar and baking soda must be evenly mixed into the flour and then into the wet ingredients quickly, since the acid-base reaction releases gas that gives lift. Waiting before baking lets that gas escape, so the gems may come out flatter.

“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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