Name: Graham Gems
Ingredients: 1 pint sour milk; 2 tablespoons molasses; 1 heaping teaspoon baking soda; Graham flour (to thicken)

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Graham Gems

Ingredients

1 pint sour milk
2 tablespoons molasses
1 heaping teaspoon baking soda
Graham flour (to thicken)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make and bake the batter

In a bowl, mix sour milk, molasses, and baking soda.
Gradually add Graham flour until the mixture thickens.
Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a baking sheet, using half the size you want them to be when baked.
Bake 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.

Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,243 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Sour milk: Acidic liquid that reacts with baking soda to make the gems rise.
Baking soda: Reacts with the sour milk's acid to release gas, lifting the batter as it bakes.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep brown color to the gems.
Graham flour: Thickens the batter and provides structure as the gems set in the oven.

“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.