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Dessert

Whole Wheat Muffins

A baked muffin made with whole wheat flour, sour and sweet milk, lard, sugar, salt, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Whole Wheat Muffins

Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Whole Wheat Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

  1. Mix the baking soda with the dry flour.

  2. Stir the flour mixture into the sour and sweet milk.

  3. Add the sugar and salt, then mix well.

  4. Melt the lard and add it to the batter, saving some to grease the muffin pans.

  5. Beat the batter well and ensure the pans are hot.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into the muffin pans and bake for 20 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  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

Sour milk
Reacts with the baking soda to produce gas, helping the muffins rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to lift the batter as it bakes.
Whole wheat flour
Provides the structure of the muffins and a hearty, nutty texture.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps the muffins moist.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into hot, greased pans. Batter that goes into hot pans starts setting and rising right away, giving a better rise and a crisp edge. Cold pans let the batter spread and rise less evenly.

“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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