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Corn Muffins

A batter of cornmeal, corn flour, all-purpose flour, sugar, salt, butter, water, baking powder, and egg baked into muffins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Corn 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.

Make the cornmeal base

  1. In a double boiler, mix cornmeal, salt, and sugar.

  2. Add boiling water and butter; cook for 1 hour.

  3. Transfer to a mixing bowl and pour 1/4 cup water over it to prevent a crust.

  4. In the morning, beat the mixture until soft and smooth.

Make the batter and bake

  1. Stir in corn flour, all-purpose flour, and baking powder.

  2. Add the beaten egg and mix well.

  3. Pour the batter into greased muffin pans.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cornmeal
Provides the main corn body and a coarse, tender crumb structure.
All-purpose flour
Adds gluten-forming structure so the muffins hold their shape.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the crumb as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the muffins rise and lighten.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Transfer to a mixing bowl and pour 1/4 cup water over it. Water poured over the hot cornmeal mixture keeps its surface moist so it does not form a dry crust, which would make the batter lumpy and uneven once beaten.

“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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