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White Com Meal Muffins

A muffin made with white cornmeal, flour, milk, butter, baking powder, sugar, salt, egg, and boiled water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

White Com Meal 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 the butter and dry ingredients

  1. Melt the butter in a cup, then pour the boiling water over the melted butter and set aside.

  2. Mix all the dry ingredients, then sift them into a bowl.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg until light, then add the milk.

  2. Stir the milk and egg mixture into the dry ingredients.

  3. Add the melted butter and water and mix well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into buttered muffin pans.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

White corn meal
Provides the main structure and the characteristic gritty, crumbly texture of the muffins.
Flour
Adds gluten-based structure so the muffins hold their shape after baking.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to make the muffins rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and helps the crumb stay moist.
Milk
Hydrates the dry ingredients and contributes to the batter's texture and browning.

The step that matters

Mix the batter just until combined. Once the flour is moistened, stirring too much develops gluten, which makes the muffins tough and dense instead of tender.

“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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