Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Corn Muffins
Ingredients
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) and grease muffin rings.
Beat the egg yolks until light.
Sift together the cornmeal, baking powder, and salt.
Make the batter
Add the sifted mixture to the egg yolks, then mix in the melted lard and milk.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.
Bake
Pour the batter into the hot, buttered rings and bake until golden.
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.
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Yolks add richness and binding, while whipped whites trap air that lifts the muffins.
- Cornmeal
- Forms the main structure and body of the muffins and gives them their corn flavor.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, causing the muffins to rise in the oven.
- Lard
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and helps the surface brown.
- Milk
- Provides moisture that hydrates the cornmeal and loosens the batter.
The step that matters
Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the batter. Beaten whites hold air that makes the muffins light. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, so the muffins bake up dense and flat instead of tender.
“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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