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Dessert

Graham Fruit Crackers

A sweet cracker made with graham and white flour, sweet cream, currants, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Graham Fruit Crackers

Why it works: Cream and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,481 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

Graham Fruit Crackers

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine sweet cream, dried currants, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  2. Add equal parts graham flour and white flour to form a very stiff dough.

Shape and fill

  1. Roll out the dough to less than ⅛ inch thick.

  2. Cover the rolled dough thickly with the fruit mixture.

  3. Lay another sheet of dough on top and roll with a rolling pin.

Cut and bake

  1. Cut into shapes and prick deeply with a fork.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until thoroughly cooked.

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. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  2. Currant + flourtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes
  3. Cream + curranttop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,829 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness so the stiff dough can be worked and rolled.
Dried currants
Provide sweetness, chew and fruit flavour inside the layered crackers.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to give the dough lift and a lighter bite.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that works with baking soda to leaven the dough.
Graham flour
Gives the crackers their nutty, coarse texture and structure.

The step that matters

Roll the dough very thin. Rolling below ⅛ inch keeps the crackers crisp rather than cakey, and the thin layers let the heat dry and set the dough evenly during baking.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, flour. 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.

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