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Dessert

Oatmeal Muffins

A quick baked muffin made with cooked oatmeal, milk, flour, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Oatmeal Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the cooked oatmeal with the milk gradually.

  2. Stir in the salt, sugar, flour mixed with baking powder, and the beaten egg.

  3. Add more milk if necessary to achieve a moderately thick batter.

  4. Stir in the melted butter and beat for 30 seconds.

Bake

  1. Bake immediately in well-greased pans or muffin rings at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the muffins together as the batter sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the muffins to rise in the oven.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the crumb as it bakes.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a workable thickness.
Cooked oatmeal
Adds moisture and a soft, tender texture to the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after mixing. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it meets liquid. Waiting before baking lets that lift escape, so the muffins may rise less and turn out denser.

“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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