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Dessert

Soy-bean Muffins

Soy-Bean Muffins are quick baked muffins made with soy bean meal, wheat flour, and optional raisins or dates.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Soy-bean Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the soy bean meal, sweetener, wheat flour, melted shortening, salt, egg, baking powder, and liquid.

  2. Blend until just mixed, ensuring the batter is not too soft.

  3. If using, dust the raisins or chopped dates with flour and fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Spoon the batter into muffin tins and bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wheat + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wheat + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

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

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

Soy bean meal or flour
Provides protein and flavor, partly replacing wheat flour for structure and a nutty taste.
Wheat flour
Builds the main structure of the muffin as gluten forms during mixing.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, lifting the batter so the muffins rise and stay light.
Melted shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Sweetener
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Blend until just mixed. Overmixing develops too much gluten in the wheat flour, making muffins tough and dense. Stopping once the ingredients are combined keeps the crumb tender.

“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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