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Dessert

Mrs. Mellick's Corn Muffins

A quick corn muffin made with cornmeal, flour, water, sugar, salt, baking powder, margarine, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mrs. Mellick's Corn 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 cornmeal base

  1. In a double boiler, mix 1 cup cornmeal, sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, and margarine.

  2. Pour boiling water over the mixture, stirring constantly, and cook for 1 hour.

  3. Transfer to a bowl and pour cold water over it.

Finish and bake

  1. In the morning, beat until soft and smooth.

  2. Add the remaining cornmeal, sifted bread flour, salt, and baking powder.

  3. Add the beaten egg and mix thoroughly.

  4. Drop the mixture into well‑greased gem pans.

  5. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Cornmeal
Forms the main body and gives the muffins their characteristic grainy texture.
Bread flour
Adds gluten structure so the muffins hold their shape after baking.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to make the muffins rise.
Margarine
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cooking the cornmeal base. Cooking the cornmeal in boiling water fully gelatinises its starch, so the base thickens and stays moist. Stirring constantly prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the double boiler.

“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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