Name: Rice Muffins
Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour; 2 teaspoons baking powder; ½ teaspoon salt; ¼ cup sugar; 1 egg; 1 cup milk; ½ cup hot, boiled rice; 3 tablespoons melted butter

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 ↓

Rice Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a bowl.

Make the batter

In another bowl, beat the egg and mix in the milk, rice, and melted butter.
Combine the wet and dry ingredients and stir well.
Pour the batter into muffin tins and bake until golden brown.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

All-purpose flour: Provides the main structure as its proteins form gluten when mixed with liquid.
Baking powder: Releases gas when moistened and heated, lifting the muffins as they bake.
Egg: Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Milk: Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
Melted butter: Adds fat for tenderness and flavor and helps the muffins brown.
Cooked rice: Adds moisture and a soft, tender texture to the crumb.

“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.