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Dessert

Plain Muffins

A simple batter of egg, condensed milk, water, salt, yeast, and flour baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plain Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine the beaten egg, condensed milk, and water in a bowl.

  2. Add salt and yeast, then mix in enough flour to form a stiff batter.

  3. Cover the batter and let it sit overnight.

Bake and serve

  1. Preheat the griddle overnight to ensure it is hot by morning.

  2. Pour the batter into muffin rings (4 inches across).

  3. Bake the batter quickly on the griddle.

  4. Tear the muffins open.

  5. Butter the muffins.

  6. Do not cut the muffins.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Condensed milk + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together410 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + condensed milktop 38% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together591 recipes

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Beaten egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the muffins hold together as they set.
Condensed milk
Adds sweetness, milk solids for browning, and moisture to the batter.
Yeast
Produces gas during the overnight rest, leavening the batter so it rises and becomes airy.
Flour
Forms the stiff batter's structure, setting into the body of the muffin as it bakes.

The step that matters

Preheat the griddle overnight. A griddle that is not fully hot when the batter goes on will bake the muffins slowly, so they may rise poorly and turn pale or dense rather than browning quickly.

“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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