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English Muffins

English muffins made with flour, potatoes, yeast, lard, and sugar, baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

English Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

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 the dough

  1. Boil the potatoes and reserve the water (1 quart).

  2. Mash the potatoes in the reserved water and strain through a sieve.

  3. Mix the strained potato water with flour, yeast, lard, and sugar to form a smooth dough.

  4. Let the dough rise overnight without working it.

Shape and rise

  1. In the morning, roll the dough to ½ inch thick on a floured surface.

  2. Cut out muffins with a biscuit cutter.

  3. Let the muffins rise for 1.5 to 2 hours.

Bake and serve

  1. Lightly grease a griddle.

  2. Bake the muffins until light brown on both sides.

  3. Place the muffins in a drip pan.

  4. Set the muffins in a warm place to dry.

  5. Butter the muffins before serving.

  6. Toast the muffins for a nicer flavor.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the muffins their structure.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become airy.
Potato water
Supplies moisture and starch that keep the dough soft and hydrated.
Potatoes
Add starch and moisture, contributing to a tender crumb.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and promotes browning on the muffin surfaces.

The step that matters

Baking on the griddle until light brown on both sides. Moderate, even heat cooks the centre through while browning the surfaces. Too hot a griddle scorches the outside before the inside sets, and too cool a surface leaves them pale and doughy.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar. 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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