Name: Bran Muffins
Ingredients: 2 cups bran; 1 cup all-purpose flour; 1 cup sour milk; ½ teaspoon baking soda; ½ teaspoon baking powder; 2 tablespoons sugar or molasses

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bran 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Mix and bake

In a bowl, mix together the bran, flour, sour milk, baking soda, baking powder, and sugar or molasses.
Spoon the mixture into a muffin tin or loaf pan.
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.

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.

Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Bran: Adds fiber-rich bulk and a hearty, slightly nutty texture to the batter.
All-purpose flour: Provides the main structure that holds the muffins together as they bake.
Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with the leavening to help the muffins rise and stay tender.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Baking powder: Adds additional lift so the muffins rise evenly in the oven.
Sugar or molasses: Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

“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.