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Dessert

Corn-meal and Wheat Muffins

A quick oven-baked muffin made with cornmeal, wheat flour, eggs, milk, 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: 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-meal and Wheat Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°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 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the cornmeal, wheat flour, baking powder, and salt.

  3. In another bowl, beat the eggs and combine with milk, syrup, and fat.

Make and bake the batter

  1. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

  2. Spoon the batter into greased muffin tins.

  3. Bake for 20-25 minutes or 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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 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 milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Cornmeal
Provides the main body and the coarse, crumbly texture of the muffins.
Eggs
Add structure and help bind the batter as they set in the oven.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten-forming structure so the muffins hold their shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the muffins rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps hydrate the flours for a tender crumb.
Syrup
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Stir the batter until just combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the wheat flour, which makes muffins tough and tunnelled. Lumps are fine; stop as soon as the dry ingredients are moistened.

“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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