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Bran Muffins

A quick oven baked bran muffin with sweetening, salt, shortening, sour milk, raisins or nuts.

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

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 ↓

Bran Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda, then mix in the bran.

  2. In a separate bowl, combine the sweetening, melted shortening, and part of the sour milk.

  3. Mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients.

  4. Add the raisins or nuts, dusted with flour, and enough sour milk to form a batter that will drop but not pour from the spoon.

Bake

  1. Grease muffin pans and fill them with the batter.

  2. Bake for about 20 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

Flour
Provides the starch structure that holds the muffin together as it bakes.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the muffins rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to release gas, lifting the batter.
Bran
Adds fibre-rich bulk and a coarse, hearty texture to the crumb.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and keeps the muffins moist.
Sweetening
Adds sweetness and helps the muffins brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Add enough sour milk to reach a drop batter. Bran absorbs liquid over time, so the batter thickens. The amount of sour milk sets the batter's consistency. Too thick gives dense muffins, and too thin makes them spread and turn out heavy.

“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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