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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. In a bowl, combine the beaten egg, condensed milk, and water.

  2. Add a little salt and the yeast.

  3. Gradually mix in enough flour to form a stiff batter.

  4. Cover and let it sit overnight.

Bake and serve

  1. Preheat a griddle on the range overnight.

  2. Pour batter into muffin rings (4 inches across) and bake quickly on the griddle.

  3. Tear open the muffins to butter them; do not cut them.

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

Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure to the finished muffins.
Yeast
Ferments the batter so it rises and becomes light and airy.
Condensed milk
Adds sweetness, richness, and tender texture to the muffins.
Flour
Forms the stiff batter and gives the muffins their main structure.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in enough flour to form a stiff batter. Adding flour slowly lets it blend evenly without lumps, and the batter must be stiff enough to hold its shape in the rings. Too much or too little flour changes the final texture.

“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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