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Dessert

Potato Corn Meal Muffins

A muffin made with mashed potatoes, cornmeal, egg, milk, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 938 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Potato 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a mixing bowl, combine the fat, beaten egg, milk, mashed potatoes, corn meal, baking powder, and salt, mixing the ingredients in the order given until well combined.

  2. Spoon the mixture into a greased muffin tin.

Bake

  1. Bake for 40 minutes or until golden brown.

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. Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  5. Egg + corntop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to lift and lighten the muffins as they bake.
Corn meal
Provides the main body and the characteristic coarse, grainy texture.
Mashed potatoes
Adds moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
Milk
Hydrates the dry ingredients and helps form the batter.

The step that matters

Mix the ingredients in the order given until well combined. Mixing only until combined keeps the crumb tender, while overmixing develops gluten and gluten-like structure, producing tough, dense muffins.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Sweet potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, corn. 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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