Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Bran Muffins
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the batter
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda, then mix in the bran.
In a separate bowl, combine the sweetener, melted shortening, and 1½ cups of sour milk.
Mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients until just combined.
Add the raisins or nuts and enough additional sour milk to achieve a batter that drops from a spoon but is not too runny.
Bake
Grease muffin pans and fill them with the batter.
Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,155 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the starch and gluten structure that holds the muffins together.
- Sour milk
- Supplies the liquid that hydrates the bran and flour, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce carbon dioxide, helping the muffins rise.
- Clean bran
- Adds fiber and bulk, absorbing liquid and giving the muffins a coarse, hearty texture.
- Shortening
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries moisture through the batter.
- Sweetener
- Adds sweetness and helps the muffins brown as they bake.
The step that matters
Adding the sour milk to the batter. Bran absorbs liquid over time, so the batter can thicken quickly. Adding milk gradually until the batter drops from a spoon keeps the muffins moist without making them dense or runny. Mixing only until combined also avoids overdeveloping gluten, which would toughen the texture.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, milk):
- Vanillafits about as well
- Raisinthe original
- Figfits less well
- Blueberryfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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