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Dessert

Oatmeal Muffins

A quick baked muffin made with oats, flour, eggs, milk, butter or oil, baking powder, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Oatmeal Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Pour the milk over the rolled oats and let them soak for 30 minutes.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the melted fat.

  3. Combine the soaked oats with the egg mixture.

  4. In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

Bake

  1. Spoon the batter into a greased muffin tin.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 to 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oatstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Milk + oatstop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,119 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Rolled oats
Absorb the soaking milk, adding chewy texture and a hearty body to the muffins.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the muffins together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to make the muffins rise and turn light.
Fat (butter or oil)
Adds moisture and tenderness, keeping the muffins from drying out.

The step that matters

Mix the batter until just combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes muffins tough and dense. Stop once no dry flour streaks remain.

“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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