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Bread Muffins

Bread Muffins made with grated bread, milk, eggs, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Bread Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in the milk for 30 minutes.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and stir them into the mixture with the salt.

  3. Mix the baking soda and cream of tartar into the flour and add it to the mixture.

  4. If the mixture is not thick enough, add more flour cautiously.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill muffin or puff pans a little more than half full.

  2. Bake until golden brown and serve hot.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Bread
Soaked in milk, it softens and adds moisture and body to the batter.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while beaten whites add lift and a light texture.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the muffins together as they set.
Cream of tartar
Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to produce gas for rising.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to release carbon dioxide, helping the muffins rise and brown.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only when beaten to stiff foam; overmixing or deflating them while folding loses that lift, so fold gently until just combined for a light, risen muffin.

“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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