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Dessert

Rye Muffins

A quick muffin made with rye and wheat flour, brown sugar, butter, molasses, baking soda, and sweet cold milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Rye Muffins

Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Rye Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift the rye and wheat flour with the salt and brown sugar.

  2. Stir in the butter and molasses.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture. Mix well until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased muffin tins.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven 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.

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.

  1. Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

  4. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rye flour
Gives the muffins their characteristic dense, moist crumb and earthy flavour.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten for structure, keeping the lighter muffins from crumbling.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, sweetness and depth, and contributes to browning.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Milk
Hydrates the flours and dissolves the baking soda, giving the batter its liquid base.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the milk. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and mixed in evenly so it reacts throughout the batter; undissolved pockets cause patchy rising and bitter spots of soda.

“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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