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Com Muffins

A quick oven-baked corn muffin made with cornmeal, flour, milk, egg, 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 ↓

Com Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients: corn meal, sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Add the milk, beaten egg, and melted butter to the dry ingredients and mix well until combined.

  3. Pour the batter into greased muffin pans.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 25 minutes or 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.

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

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

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the muffins together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the muffins rise and become light.
Corn meal
Gives the muffins their characteristic grainy texture and corn flavor.
Milk
Hydrates the dry ingredients and adds moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and flavor to the muffins.

The step that matters

Mix well until combined. Stirring only until the ingredients just come together keeps the batter tender. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which can make muffins tough and dense.

“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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