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Corn and Wheat Muffins

A quick muffin made with corn flour, wheat flour, milk, egg, syrup, baking powder, salt, and fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Corn and Wheat 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, mix the corn flour, wheat flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. In another bowl, beat the egg and combine it with the milk and syrup.

  3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

  4. Stir in the fat until evenly distributed.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased muffin tin 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. Corn + wheattop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  3. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten for structure, giving the muffins their main body and crumb.
Corn flour
Adds tenderness and a coarser texture, since it lacks gluten for structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the muffins rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that hydrates the flours and helps browning.
Syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crust brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Mix until just combined. Once the wet and dry ingredients meet, gluten develops with stirring. Overmixing makes the muffins tough and dense, so stop when no dry flour streaks remain.

“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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