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Dessert

Squash Muffins

A baked muffin made with mashed squash, sugar, egg, shortening, milk, flour, baking powder, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Squash Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg and sugar together.

  2. Add the squash, shortening, and milk to the mixture.

Make the batter

  1. Sift the baking powder into the flour.

  2. Combine the flour mixture with the wet ingredients to form a very stiff batter.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until done, about 12 to 18 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. Sugar + milktop 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

Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the muffins hold together as they set.
Squash
Adds moisture and soft texture to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the muffins rise in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the batter as it sets during baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Combine the flour mixture with the wet ingredients. The batter should be very stiff, as the record states. Overmixing once flour meets liquid develops gluten, which can make muffins tough and dense.

“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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