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Dessert

Graham Gems

A quick, sweet cookie made with graham and all-purpose flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Graham Gems

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C) and heat gem pans.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix graham flour, all-purpose flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and sugar.

  2. Add beaten egg and melted butter to dry ingredients.

  3. Gradually add sweet milk until batter is thick enough to drop from a spoon.

Bake

  1. Drop batter into hot gem pans and bake until golden.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Graham flour
Provides the coarse, nutty body that gives these gems their characteristic texture.
All-purpose flour
Adds gluten-based structure so the gems hold their shape while baking.
Cream of tartar
Reacts with baking soda to produce carbon dioxide, helping the gems rise.
Baking soda
Acts as the base that reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to leaven the batter.
Large egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps browning in the hot pan.

The step that matters

Drop batter into hot gem pans. Batter poured into hot pans begins setting and rising right away, giving a crisp edge and an even rise. Cold pans let the batter spread and bake dense.

“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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