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Dessert

Risen Muffins

A yeast-based muffin with milk, eggs, butter, lard, potato, and flour, baked after rising.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Risen 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 the dough

  1. Boil the milk and set aside to cool.

  2. Whip the eggs until very light.

  3. Dissolve the yeast in ½ cup of tepid water with the sugar.

  4. Add the cooled milk, softened butter, lard, flour, salt, and the potato (mashed through a sieve).

  5. Mix thoroughly; if too stiff, add a little more tepid water.

  6. Beat the batter until it blisters and pops.

Rise and bake

  1. Place in a greased bowl and set in a warm place to rise for 4-5 hours.

  2. When risen, beat it down smoothly and drop into greased muffin tins.

  3. Let rise for 1 hour.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20-30 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. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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
Provides the structure that holds the risen muffins together as the gluten sets.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and whipping them traps air that lightens the crumb.
Fleischmann's yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas during rising, which makes the muffins light and airy.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and contributes to browning and a soft crumb.
Potato
Adds moisture and starch that help keep the muffins soft and tender.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Beat the batter until it blisters and pops. Vigorous beating develops gluten and works air into the batter, giving the yeast a strong structure to lift. Too little beating leaves a dense, heavy muffin.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, sugar, milk, butter):

  1. Sweet potatofits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Arrowrootfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, sugar, milk, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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