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Dessert

Plain Muffins

A simple batter muffin made with egg, butter, sugar, milk, flour, 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: 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 ↓

Plain Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg, butter, sugar, and salt until very light.

  2. Add the milk and mix well.

  3. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the wet mixture.

  4. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into well-greased muffin pans.

Bake

  1. Bake for 20 minutes in a preheated oven at 400 °F (200 °C), or cook on a griddle in muffin rings.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor in the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the muffins together as they bake.
Milk
Supplies liquid that hydrates the flour and gives the batter its pourable texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the muffins to rise and become light.

The step that matters

Gradually folding in the sifted flour and baking powder. Overmixing once the flour is added develops gluten, which makes muffins tough. Mixing just until combined keeps the crumb tender and lets the baking powder lift the batter evenly.

“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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