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Dessert

Whole Wheat Muffins

A yeast-leavened muffin made with whole wheat flour, milk, butter, eggs, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Shutt, William E., Mrs., [from old catalog] comp · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Whole Wheat Muffins

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 Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Dissolve a half cake of compressed yeast in half a pint of milk, and add sufficient quantity of rich milk to make a pint.

  2. Stir into it three cups of whole wheat flour, and set in a warm place to rise.

  3. When light, stir in two well-beaten eggs, and turn into gem irons, half folding them.

Bake the muffins

  1. Let them rise until very light, and bake in a quick oven.

  2. Bake for five minutes after the top has blistered.

Make the rusk dough

  1. Combine one pint of milk, half a cup of melted butter, two beaten eggs, one cup powdered sugar, one quart of flour, half a cake of compressed yeast melted in luke-warm water, or one half a cup of other good yeast.

  2. Mix well; set it away to rise.

  3. When risen to twice its original size, knead well, adding more flour if necessary, make into rusk, put into a pan to rise again.

  4. When quite light, bake in a moderate warm oven about three-quarters of an hour.

Make the griddle rings

  1. Make the milk warm, and stir it into the yeast with a little salt.

  2. Add a sufficient quantity of flour to make it into a batter.

  3. Set it to rise for half an hour, then add a cupful of melted butter.

  4. Stir it well in, and pour it into iron rings, previously placed on hot griddle, and bake them very lightly on both sides.

  5. When required toast them on both sides, taking care they do not burn.

  6. Butter them nicely, cut them across, and put them up on a hot plate.

  7. Serve them quickly; hot.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

833Calories
27 gProtein
26 gFat
120 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Cakenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Shutt, William E., Mrs., [from old catalog] comp. 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. See the original page.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

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

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

Compressed yeast
Leavens the batter and dough so they rise and become light.
Whole wheat flour
Provides the structure of the batter and dough.
Eggs
Add richness and help bind the batter for a tender crumb.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour so the dough can develop.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the dough brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise fully before baking. Yeast needs time to produce gas and stretch the gluten; baking too early gives dense, heavy muffins, while the rise must be completed before the oven does its work.

“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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