Name: Cream Muffins
Ingredients: 1 pint all-purpose flour, sifted; 1 heaping teaspoon baking powder; 1 pint heavy cream; 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened; 2 large eggs

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream Muffins

Ingredients

1 pint all-purpose flour, sifted
1 heaping teaspoon baking powder
1 pint heavy cream
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs

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 the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Sift together the flour and baking powder in a bowl.
Beat together the cream and softened butter in another bowl.

Make and bake the batter

Add the beaten eggs to the cream mixture and mix well.
Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and stir until combined.
Drop spoonfuls of the batter into a buttered muffin pan.
Bake in the preheated oven 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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,481 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

All-purpose flour: Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the muffins their structure.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking, helping the muffins rise and become light.
Heavy cream: Adds fat and moisture, giving the muffins a tender, rich crumb.
Unsalted butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.

“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.