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
In a bowl, combine boiled rice, sweet milk, beaten eggs, melted butter, salt, sugar, baking powder, and flour.
Mix until you have a soft batter that will drop from a spoon. Stir lightly but thoroughly.
Drop the batter into hot buttered muffin rings.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter and flour 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the muffins as its starches set in the oven.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the muffins rise and become light.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness, and moisture that keeps the crumb soft.
- Sweet milk
- Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and richness to the batter.
The step that matters
Stir lightly but thoroughly. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes muffins tough and dense. Stir only until the ingredients are evenly combined, leaving the batter soft enough to drop from a spoon.
“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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