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Dessert

English Water Muffins

A simple yeast bread made with water, flour, yeast, and salt, baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

English Water Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine the flour, tepid water, yeast, and salt in a large bowl and beat thoroughly.

  2. Cover the bowl and let the mixture rise overnight.

Shape and cook

  1. Flour a clean surface and roll out the dough very thin, using minimal flour.

  2. Cut out muffins using the cover of a small tin pail, aiming for 5 inches in diameter.

  3. Lightly butter a griddle and place the muffins on it.

  4. Let the muffins rise for a short time.

  5. Move the griddle to the front of the stove and bake the muffins slowly, turning them often to keep both sides flat.

Finish and serve

  1. Once baked, tear the muffins apart.

  2. Butter the torn pieces.

  3. Serve three together, cutting across the center.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the dough once mixed with liquid.
Tepid water
Hydrates the flour and helps form a workable dough.
Yeast
Produces gas during the overnight rise, leavening the dough.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor and keeps the torn muffins soft on the surface.

The step that matters

Turning the muffins during slow baking. Turning often on a low, slow heat helps the muffins cook evenly through and stay flat on both sides instead of puffing or scorching on one face.

“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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