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Dessert

Blueberry Tea Muffins

Blueberry tea muffins are a quick baked treat made with flour, sugar, eggs, milk, and blueberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Blueberry Tea Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the Crisco and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Sift together 1½ cups flour, baking powder, and salt.

  4. Add alternately with the milk to the first mixture.

  5. Dredge the blueberries with ½ cup flour.

  6. Stir in lightly.

Bake

  1. Bake in greased muffin pans at 400°F (200°C) for 25 to 30 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the muffin crumb together as it bakes.
Crisco
Fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor through the batter.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, lifting the muffins as they bake.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the flour hydrates into a batter.
Blueberries
Add bursts of fruit flavor and moisture throughout the muffins.

The step that matters

Stir in the blueberries lightly. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which makes muffins tough. Dusting the berries in flour helps them stay suspended instead of sinking to the bottom.

“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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