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Dessert

Bye Muffins

A quick muffin made with rye and white flour, sweet milk, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Rye and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bye Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the rye flour, white flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar.

  3. In another bowl, beat the egg and add the sweet milk.

Mix and bake

  1. Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

  2. Spoon the batter into a greased muffin tin.

  3. 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. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Flour + milktop 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).

Flour and milk 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

Rye flour
Adds a earthy flavor and a tender but less elastic structure than wheat flour alone.
White flour
Provides the main gluten network that gives the muffins their structure and rise.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, lifting the batter so the muffins rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the muffins and helps them brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Mix the wet and dry ingredients until just combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes muffins tough and tunnelled. Stopping once the flour is just moistened keeps them tender, and the batter should still look lumpy.

“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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