Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Muffins, No. 2
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, beat together the melted butter, sugar, and eggs.
Stir in the slightly warmed milk.
Add flour until the mixture is the consistency of griddle-cakes.
Bake and serve
When the batter is light, bake in muffin rings or on a griddle.
For tea, mix the batter immediately after breakfast.
Pull muffins apart with fingers instead of cutting with a knife.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Yeast
- Produces gas that makes the batter light and rising.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping the muffins hold their shape.
- Flour
- Thickens the batter and provides the structure that sets during baking.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form the batter.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown.
The step that matters
Add flour until the mixture is the consistency of griddle-cakes. Flour starch and gluten build the structure of the muffins. Too much flour stiffens the batter and limits the gas the yeast can lift, giving dense muffins. Too little leaves them flat and wet inside.
“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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