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Dessert

Graham Steam Pudding

A steamed pudding made with graham flour, milk, baking soda, and ground cloves, served with cinnamon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Graham Steam Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the milk and graham flour.

  2. Add baking soda and ground cloves, mixing well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for about 1 hour until cooked through.

  2. Serve warm with cinnamon 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a moist batter that steams into a tender pudding.
Graham flour
Makes up the bulk of the batter and sets into the pudding's structure as it cooks.
Ground cloves
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavor to the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam until cooked through. Heat must reach the center so the starches gelatinize and the flour sets. An underdone pudding stays gummy and dense in the middle.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Jalapenofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, cinnamon, sauce. 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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