Name: Graham Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup molasses; 1 cup Graham flour; 1 cup sweet milk; 2 eggs; 1 cup raisins; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 cup currants; 1 teaspoon baking soda

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

Make the pudding

In a large bowl, combine molasses, Graham flour, sweet milk, eggs, raisins, butter, currants, and baking soda, and mix until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.
Steam for 2 hours.

Serve

Serve with 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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Molasses: Adds sweetness, depth of flavour and moisture to the pudding.
Graham flour: Provides the main body and structure of the pudding batter.
Eggs: Bind the batter and help give the steamed pudding its set structure.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Sweet milk: Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits about as well
Currantthe original

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