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Dessert

Rye Drops, or Muffins

A yeast-raised rye muffin made with milk, eggs, rye flour, wheat flour, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Rye Drops, or 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Combine milk, eggs, rye flour, wheat flour, and yeast in a bowl, then mix well and cover the bowl.

Rise and bake

  1. Let the mixture rise in a warm place overnight.

  2. The next morning, preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  3. Pour the batter into round tins.

  4. Bake for 30 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. Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + ryetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rye flour
Forms the bulk of the crumb, though it has less gluten than wheat to hold its structure.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten, which helps the batter trap gas and hold its shape.
Yeast
Produces gas during the overnight rise, which leavens the muffins.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give the muffins structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps produce a soft, tender crumb.

The step that matters

Overnight rise. The yeast needs a long, warm rise to produce enough gas to leaven the batter. Covering the bowl keeps the surface from drying, which would slow the rise and toughen the top.

“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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