Skip to main content
Dessert

Cream Muffins

A quick oven-baked muffin made with egg, cream, milk, flour, salt, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA very quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg until light.

  2. Mix the egg with the cream, salt, and milk.

  3. Sift in the whole-meal flour and baking powder slowly.

  4. Fill each muffin pan with a small amount of batter.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 15 minutes until puffed and crusty.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Milk and flour 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

Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the batter set around the rising gas bubbles.
Whole-meal flour
Forms the main structure of the muffins as its starches set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, making the muffins rise and puff.
Rich sweet cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the muffins a tender crumb.
Milk
Adds moisture to hydrate the flour and loosen the batter.

The step that matters

Sift in the flour and baking powder slowly. Adding flour gradually while mixing keeps the batter smooth and evenly hydrated. Overworking it develops gluten, which can make muffins tough, while uneven mixing leaves pockets of unreacted baking powder.

“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.

More cream muffins recipes

Sour 3 See all 43 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes