Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Corn Meal Muffins
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a large bowl, combine corn meal, flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.
In another bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the melted butter and enough milk to create a stiff batter.
Mix and bake
Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
Spoon the batter into greased muffin tins.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour and butter 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
- Corn meal
- Provides the coarse, grainy texture and characteristic corn flavour of the muffins.
- Flour
- Builds the structure that holds the muffins together as they bake.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the muffins rise and become light.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavour.
The step that matters
Mix the wet and dry ingredients until just combined. Once liquid meets flour, gluten begins to form. Overmixing makes the muffins tough and dense, so stop as soon as no dry streaks remain.
“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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