Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Corn Muffins
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine cornmeal, egg, baking powder, and salt.
Melt the lard and add it to the mixture.
Gradually add sweet milk until a moderately stiff dough forms.
Bake
Spoon the batter into muffin pans.
Bake until golden brown.
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.
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Provides the main body and structure of the muffins.
- Egg
- Binds the dry ingredients and adds structure and richness to the batter.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the oven so the muffins rise and turn light.
- Lard
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes to browning.
- Sweet milk
- Hydrates the cornmeal so the mixture forms a workable dough.
The step that matters
Gradually add sweet milk until a moderately stiff dough forms. Cornmeal absorbs liquid at different rates depending on its grind and age. Adding milk gradually lets you stop at the right consistency, because too much liquid makes the muffins heavy and spreading while too little leaves them dry and crumbly.
“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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