Skip to main content
Baking

Corn Muffins

Corn muffins made with corn meal, boiling water, melted butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Corn and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Corn Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Scald the corn meal with boiling water, ideally the night before.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

Finish and bake

  1. Add the melted butter and eggs to the cooled mixture.

  2. Mix well and bake in muffin rings.

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. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Corn + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn meal
Forms the main body of the muffins, and its starch sets as the muffins bake.
Boiling water
Hydrates and softens the corn meal so it absorbs liquid and becomes tender.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give the muffins structure.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness, moisture and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Eggs added to very hot cornmeal can partly cook and curdle, so the batter may turn lumpy instead of smooth. Cooling first lets the eggs blend evenly and keeps the texture uniform.

“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.

More corn muffins recipes

Indian 3 See all 148 →

You might also like

Cornmeal Griddle CakesCornmeal Griddle Cakes24 recipesCorn Breakfast CakesCorn Breakfast Cakes20 recipesDelicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipes