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Dessert

Southern Corn Meal Muffins

A quick, savory muffin made with cornmeal, flour, eggs, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Southern Corn Meal 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. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs until light.

  2. Add sour milk, corn meal, flour, salt, and baking powder to the yolks.

  3. Grease muffin pans and preheat them in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  4. Dissolve baking soda in luke-warm water and add to the batter.

Mix and bake

  1. Beat the batter vigorously, then fold in the stiffly whipped egg whites.

  2. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 15-20 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 + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 and bind the batter, while whipped whites add lift and a lighter crumb.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the muffins rise and adds tenderness.
White corn meal
Provides the coarse, grainy texture and corn flavor that define the muffins.
Flour
Gives the muffins structure so they hold their shape after baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to give the muffins additional rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas that leavens the batter.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Stiffly whipped whites trap air that gives lift. Overmixing after folding them in deflates the foam, leaving denser 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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