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Dessert

Rice Muffins

Rice muffins made with milk, flour, boiled rice, eggs, sugar, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice 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.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the salt, sugar, cream of tartar, and baking soda with the flour.

  2. Beat the eggs and add them to the milk.

  3. Stir the egg mixture gradually into the flour until smooth.

  4. Add the boiled rice and beat thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Bake in greased pans for 30 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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 + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the muffins as its proteins and starches set in the oven.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that activates the baking soda, helping the muffins rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth batter that bakes into a tender crumb.
Boiled rice
Adds moisture and body to the batter, giving the muffins a softer texture.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture gradually into the flour until smooth. Adding the liquid slowly while stirring lets the flour hydrate evenly without lumps. Overmixing once the flour is wet develops gluten, which can make the muffins tough and dense.

“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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