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Dessert

Quick Muffins

A quick muffin batter made with milk, flour, eggs, butter, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Quick Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs separately until light.

  2. Add the yolks to the milk.

  3. Mix in the flour until the batter is thin and pourable.

  4. Stir in the melted butter and salt.

  5. Beat vigorously.

  6. Add the baking powder and the well-beaten egg whites.

  7. Stir until thoroughly mixed.

Bake

  1. Bake in muffin rings at 400°F (200°C) or on a griddle.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whites, beaten separately, trap air that lightens the muffins.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets as the muffins bake.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that hydrates the flour and gives the batter its pourable texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, causing the muffins to rise.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and adds richness.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, helping the leavening react and stabilizing the whites.

The step that matters

Add the baking powder and well-beaten egg whites. Gas from the leavening and air in the whites are what lift the batter. Once combined, stir only until mixed, because overmixing knocks out air and develops gluten, leaving dense muffins.

“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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