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Dessert

Wheatless Muffins

These muffins are made from a batter of milk, fat, syrup, egg, baking powder, salt, and flour, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wheatless Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Mix the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the milk, melted fat, syrup, and slightly beaten egg.

  2. In another bowl, sift together the salt, baking powder, and flour using a coarse sieve.

  3. Combine the wet and dry mixtures, stirring lightly without beating.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into muffin tins and bake for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on muffin size.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Syrup + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,540 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + syruptop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Milk and flour 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the muffin together as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, making the muffins rise and turn light.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour so the batter can form.
Fat
Adds tenderness and richness, softening the crumb of the muffin.

The step that matters

Stirring the batter lightly. Overmixing develops gluten and tunnels from trapped gas, making muffins tough and peaked. Stir just until the dry ingredients are moistened, leaving lumps.

“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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