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Dessert

Steamed Graham Pudding

A steamed pudding made with graham flour, raisins, molasses, and sour milk.

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 ↓

Steamed Graham Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg in a large bowl.

  2. Add molasses, sour milk, and dissolved baking soda; mix well.

  3. Stir in graham flour, chopped raisins, and salt until combined.

  4. If the mixture is not thick enough, add more flour.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased steaming dish.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for three hours.

  2. Serve with cream and sugar.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as the pudding sets.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and deep color and flavor.
Sour milk
Supplies acidity that reacts with baking soda and adds moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Graham flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding and gives it a nutty body.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and pockets of sweetness throughout.

The step that matters

Check the batter thickness. Batter that is too thin will steam into a dense, wet pudding that may not hold its shape. Adding flour until the mixture is thick enough gives the graham flour enough body to set during steaming.

“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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