Name: Corn Muffins with Fruit
Ingredients: 1 lb corn meal; 2 eggs; ½ lb flour; 1 pint milk; 1 oz sugar; 1 pint of any kind of berries or stoned fruit, peeled and sliced; 1 teaspoon salt; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 oz butter

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 ↓

Corn Muffins with Fruit

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, combine corn meal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
In another bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the milk and melted butter.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
Fold in the berries or sliced fruit.
Spoon the batter into greased muffin tins.

Bake

Bake for 20-25 minutes or 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.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,165 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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: Forms the main body of the muffin and gives them their characteristic grainy texture.
Flour: Provides structure so the muffins hold their shape as they bake.
Eggs: Bind the batter and help set the crumb as it bakes.
Milk: Adds moisture and hydrates the dry ingredients into a batter.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking so the muffins rise and stay light.
Berries or stoned fruit: Add moisture, sweetness and tartness pockets throughout the muffins.

The step that matters

Stir the batter until just combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes the muffins tough and dense. Stopping once the dry ingredients are moistened keeps them tender, and folding the fruit in gently avoids crushing it.

“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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Corn Muffins with Fruit