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Potato-Corn Meal Muffins

Muffins made from mashed potato, cornmeal, flour, and eggs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 938 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Potato-Corn Meal Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Add the corn meal, salt, syrup, and ½ cup liquid to the hot mashed potato.

  2. Place in a double boiler and steam for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the shortening and allow to cool thoroughly.

  4. When cold, add the well-beaten eggs and the sifted flour with baking powder.

  5. Add more liquid if necessary to make a somewhat stiff batter.

Bake

  1. Beat thoroughly, place in gem pans until half filled, and bake for about 25 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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. Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,540 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and egg 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

Mashed potato
Adds moisture and a tender, soft crumb to the muffins.
Corn meal
Gives the muffins their grainy texture and corn flavor.
Sifted flour
Provides the main structure that holds the muffins together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the muffins rise.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Shortening
Adds fat, tenderizing the crumb and softening the texture.

The step that matters

Let the potato mixture cool thoroughly before adding the eggs and flour. If the mixture is still hot, the eggs can scramble and the baking powder loses lift before baking, so the muffins may turn out dense.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, flour, syrup, egg):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, flour, syrup, egg. 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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