Skip to main content
Dessert

Wheat Muffins

A quick batter of milk, butter, eggs, flour, and yeast baked in muffin rings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Wheat Muffins

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 ↓

Wheat Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter in the milk and let it cool.

  2. Beat the eggs until very light.

  3. Gradually add the milk and flour alternately to create a thin batter.

  4. Stir in the yeast or baking powder.

Cook and serve

  1. Bake in muffin rings on a griddle.

  2. Butter the muffins before serving, tearing them apart instead of cutting.

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.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Beaten eggs add structure and lightness to the thin batter as they set.
Flour
Flour forms the gluten and starch network that gives the muffins their body.
Milk
Milk supplies the liquid that hydrates the flour and makes the batter pourable.
Butter
Melted butter adds fat for richer flavor and a softer crumb.
Yeast or baking powder
Yeast or baking powder produces gas bubbles that make the batter rise and open up.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and flour alternately. Adding them gradually and alternately keeps the batter smooth without lumps. Overmixing after the flour goes in can toughen the texture by developing too much gluten.

“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.

More wheat muffins recipes

Whole 33 See all 50 →

You might also like

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