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Rice Muffins

Rice muffins made with boiled rice, flour, milk, eggs, sugar, salt, baking powder, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. In a large bowl, combine the cold boiled rice, flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder.

  3. In another bowl, whisk together the milk and eggs.

Mix and bake

  1. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until smooth and firm.

  2. Spoon the batter into a greased muffin tin and bake for 20-25 minutes or 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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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
Provides the main structure that holds the muffins together as they set.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set, adding structure and richness.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour so the batter forms.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the muffins rise in the oven.
Cold boiled rice
Adds moisture and body, giving the muffins a tender, soft crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the muffin tops turn golden brown.

The step that matters

Mixing the wet and dry ingredients. Flour forms gluten when stirred with liquid. Mixing only until combined keeps the muffins tender, while overmixing makes them 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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