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Dessert

Graham Pudding

A steamed pudding made with graham flour, milk, molasses, raisins, baking soda, salt, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in a little milk.

  2. In a bowl, combine graham flour, milk, molasses, raisins, dissolved baking soda, salt, and ginger, and mix well until smooth.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming dish.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 2 hours.

  2. Serve with your preferred 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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

Graham flour
Provides the bulk and structure of the pudding, along with its nutty, wholesome flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise as it steams.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and gives the pudding its characteristic deep flavour.
Raisins
Add pockets of chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and dissolves the baking soda, giving the batter its pourable texture.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda. Baking soda must be fully dissolved in the milk before mixing so it disperses evenly. Clumps of soda can leave bitter, soapy pockets and uneven rising in the pudding.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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