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Baking

Corn Muffins

A sweet corn and wheat flour muffin baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Corn 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift the flour and baking powder together.

  2. In a bowl, rub the sugar and butter with the eggs until well combined.

  3. Add the milk to the mixture and stir well.

  4. Gradually mix in the sifted flour and cornmeal until smooth.

Bake

  1. Fill well-greased muffin molds with the batter.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Wheat flour
Provides the main structure that holds the muffins together as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the muffins rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness, flavor, and a softer crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as the muffins bake.
Cornmeal
Gives the muffins their characteristic corn flavor and slightly grainy texture.

The step that matters

Sift the flour and baking powder together. Sifting spreads the baking powder evenly through the flour so the muffins rise uniformly instead of forming pockets of leavening or uneven spots.

“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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