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Dessert

Rye Drops, or Muffins

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

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.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine milk, eggs, rye flour, and wheat flour.

  2. Add the homemade yeast or distiller's yeast and mix well.

  3. Cover the bowl and let the mixture rise overnight in a warm place.

Bake

  1. The next morning, preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Spoon the batter into round tins and 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
Provides the bulk of the structure, though rye has less gluten to trap gas than wheat.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the muffins hold their shape as they bake.
Homemade yeast or distiller's yeast
Produces gas during the overnight rise, leavening the batter so the muffins lighten.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and a soft crumb.

The step that matters

Overnight rise in a warm place. The yeast needs time and mild warmth to produce gas and ferment the batter. Too cold and the rise is slow and weak, so the muffins come out 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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