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Corn Meal Muffins

A quick batter of soaked cornmeal, baking soda, buttermilk, eggs, and butter baked in muffin rings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and cream work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 674 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Corn Meal Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Soak the cornmeal overnight in sweet milk until it is wet.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in boiling water.

  3. Add the buttermilk or sour milk to the cornmeal.

  4. Add the egg yolks, thick cream or melted butter, and coarse sea salt.

Bake

  1. Preheat your muffin rings or frames and bake for 20 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. Buttermilk + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Cornmeal
Forms the body of the muffins and gives them their grainy texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk or sour milk to produce gas that lightens the muffins.
Buttermilk or sour milk
Supplies acidity to activate the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter together.
Thick cream or melted butter
Adds fat, which tenderises the crumb and adds richness.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in boiling water. Baking soda needs an acid, such as the buttermilk or sour milk, to release gas and lift the muffins. Dissolving it fully in hot water spreads it evenly through the batter so it rises consistently rather than leaving pockets or dense spots.

“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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