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Dessert

Grits Muffins

A baked muffin made with grits, cornmeal, eggs, butter, lard, milk, and baked in small cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Grits Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil the grits until soft.

  2. Beat the eggs separately.

  3. Stir the butter and lard into the warm grits.

  4. Add the cornmeal and milk, mixing well.

Bake

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites last.

  2. Bake in little china cups or skillets.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Eggs
Beaten whites trap air, giving the muffins lift and a lighter crumb.
Grits
Cooked grits add body and a tender, creamy texture to the batter.
Cornmeal
Adds structure and a coarser, sturdier crumb to the muffins.
Milk
Supplies moisture that hydrates the grains and keeps the crumb soft.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a more tender texture.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the crumb moist and tender.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites last. Beaten whites hold air that gives lift. Stirring them in vigorously or too long deflates the foam, leaving the muffins dense and flat.

“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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