Skip to main content
Dessert

Muffins, American

A quick, soft dough muffin made with milk, yeast, egg whites, baking soda, flour, and cooked on a hot plate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and flour 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 ↓

Muffins, American

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Warm the milk and add the yeast, salt, frothed egg whites, and dissolved baking soda.

  2. Mix in enough flour to form a soft dough.

  3. Cover the bowl with a cloth.

  4. Let the dough rise in a warm place for 2 to 3 hours.

Shape and cook

  1. Take a spoonful of dough for each muffin.

  2. Drop the dough onto a floured board and shape it as needed.

  3. Let the muffins rise again.

  4. Place the muffins on a hot, oiled plate or stove.

  5. Cook until one side is slightly browned.

  6. Turn the muffins to brown the other side.

Split and serve

  1. Split the muffins around the edge with your thumb and finger.

  2. Toast gently on both sides.

  3. Add 2 to 3 lumps of butter between the halves.

  4. Cut the muffins into quarters.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Milk and flour 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

Flour
Forms the soft dough structure that traps gas and holds the muffin's shape.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide as it ferments, making the dough rise and become airy.
Egg whites
Add structure and lightness to the dough when frothed.
Milk
Provides moisture and helps form a soft, tender dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with acid in the dough to release gas and aid rising and browning.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise in a warm place for 2 to 3 hours. Yeast needs warmth and time to ferment fully. Under-rising leaves the muffins dense, while the gas produced by fermentation gives them their light, open texture.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes