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Dessert

Plain Muffins

A simple muffin made with margarine, egg, milk, sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Plain Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grease twelve muffin pans with hot margarine.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the melted margarine and sugar.

  2. Add the beaten egg and mix well.

  3. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  4. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk to the mixture.

  5. Pour the batter into the prepared pans.

Bake

  1. Bake 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. Milk + sugartop 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 main structure of the muffin as its starch sets during baking.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give the muffins structure and richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the muffins rise and become light.
Margarine
Adds fat for tenderness and moisture in the crumb.
Milk
Adds liquid that hydrates the flour and combines the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the muffins and helps them brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Alternating the dry ingredients with the milk. Adding the flour mixture and milk in alternating portions keeps the batter smooth and blended. Overmixing once flour is wet develops gluten, which can make the muffins tough.

“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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