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Whole Wheat Flour Gems

A baked whole wheat flour batter made into gem-shaped muffins, optionally with a yeast version.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Whole Wheat Flour Gems

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine 1½ cups of whole wheat flour, ½ cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar, and ½ teaspoon of coarse sea salt. Sift the dry ingredients together.

  2. Add milk gradually to create a stiff batter.

Bake the gems

  1. Pour the batter into gem pans and bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

Make the yeast version

  1. For a yeast version, mix 1 cup of scalded milk with ½ cup of sugar, ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt, and ⅓ of a cake of compressed yeast.

  2. Add whole wheat flour to make a thin batter and let it sit overnight.

  3. In the morning, add more flour to thicken the batter to muffin consistency.

  4. Transfer to a two-quart crock, let it rise until light, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for at least one hour.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Whole wheat flour
Provides the structure of the batter, with bran adding a nutty, coarser texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to release carbon dioxide, lifting the gems as they bake.
Cream of tartar
Supplies acid that reacts with baking soda, producing gas for rising and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the gems brown in the oven.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so starches and proteins form a cohesive batter.

The step that matters

Add the milk gradually. Whole wheat flour absorbs liquid at its own pace. Adding milk slowly lets you reach a stiff batter. Too much liquid makes the batter loose, so the gems spread and rise poorly.

“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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