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Dessert

Health Bran Muffins

Muffins made with Pillsbury Health Bran, best flour, sour milk, and lard or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Health Bran Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot 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 butter, egg, and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water.

  3. Add the dissolved baking soda to the sour milk.

  4. Mix in the bran, flour, and salt.

  5. Add the egg and sugar mixture and mix thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Divide into buttered gem pans.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for twenty minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  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

Pillsbury's health bran
Adds fibre and bulk, absorbing liquid to give the muffins a hearty, dense crumb.
Pillsbury's best flour
Provides the main structure that holds the muffins together as they bake.
Sour milk or buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to leaven the muffins and help them rise.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the muffins brown lightly at the surface.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the boiling water. Baking soda must be fully dissolved before it meets the sour milk, so it reacts evenly. Lumps can leave pockets of bitter, unreacted soda and uneven rising.

“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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