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Dessert

Rye Muffins

A quick oven-baked rye and wheat flour muffin with molasses, baking soda, cream of tartar, egg, and milk.

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

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 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

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the rye flour and wheat flour.

  3. In another bowl, beat the egg and add the molasses.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda and cream of tartar in a little milk, then add to the egg mixture.

Make and bake the muffins

  1. Combine the wet and dry ingredients, adding milk until the mixture is not too soft.

  2. Pour the batter into a muffin pan and bake until golden brown.

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. Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Wheat + milktop 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. Rye + milktop 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
Provides the main structure and the distinctive earthy flavour of the muffins.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten for structure, giving the muffins a softer, lighter crumb than rye alone.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deep colour that helps the muffins brown.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release carbon dioxide, helping the muffins rise.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that activates the baking soda and stabilises the rise.

The step that matters

Adding milk to the combined batter. Rye flour has less gluten than wheat flour, so the batter can quickly become too stiff or too wet. Adding milk gradually and stopping once the batter is no longer too soft keeps the texture tender and the rise even.

“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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