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Baking

Graham Cakes

A batter of Graham meal, wheat flour, yeast, salt, warm water, and baking soda cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Graham Cakes

Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Graham Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix Graham meal, wheat flour, yeast, and salt to form a stiff batter.

  2. Cover and let it sit overnight.

Cook

  1. In the morning, thin the batter with warm water and add baking soda.

  2. Preheat a griddle.

  3. Pour batter onto the griddle and cook until golden brown on both sides.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Ferments the overnight batter, producing gas that makes the cakes light and airy.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's acidity to release gas, adding further rise and a tender crumb.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten and starch that give the batter structure and hold the cakes together.
Graham meal
Supplies the coarse whole-grain base, adding bran texture, nutty flavor and body to the cakes.

The step that matters

Thinning the batter before cooking. The batter must be loosened with warm water and given baking soda before cooking. Too thick a batter cooks unevenly and stays dense, while the soda needs to be mixed in evenly so the cakes rise uniformly.

“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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