Skip to main content
Baking

Corn Muffins

A baked muffin made with flour, cornmeal, baking powder, butter, sugar, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Corn 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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and sugar.

  3. Add the butter and mix until well combined.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and then add them to the mixture along with the milk. Stir until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased muffin tin.

  2. Bake for 20-25 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the muffins together as they bake.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the muffins set as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and moisture, and a rich flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the muffins rise and become light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as the muffins bake.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the batter.

The step that matters

Stir until just combined. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Overmixing develops too much gluten, which makes the muffins tough and dense instead of tender.

“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.

More corn muffins recipes

Indian 3 See all 148 →

You might also like

Cornmeal Griddle CakesCornmeal Griddle Cakes24 recipesCorn Breakfast CakesCorn Breakfast Cakes20 recipesDelicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipes