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Entire Wheat Muffins

A quick whole wheat muffin made with milk, water, egg, sugar, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Entire Wheat Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather 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).

  2. In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients and sift them together.

Make and bake the muffins

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

  2. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and mix quickly and vigorously.

  3. Pour the batter into buttered muffin pans.

  4. Bake for 25 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.

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. Cream + sugartop 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

Entire wheat flour
Forms the structure of the muffins and gives them a hearty, nutty texture.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the crumb as it bakes.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness and helps the muffins brown.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with other leavening to help the muffins rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning of the crust.

The step that matters

Mix the wet and dry ingredients quickly and vigorously. Once liquid meets flour, gluten begins to develop, and overmixing makes muffins tough and dense. Mixing just until combined keeps the crumb tender, while the acid and leavening are still active to lift the batter.

“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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