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Corn Muffins

A sweet muffin made with wheat flour, cornmeal, butter, sugar, eggs, baking powder, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Corn Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the softened butter, sugar, and egg yolks together until creamy.

  2. Add the wheat flour, corn meal, baking powder, and milk to the mixture.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased muffin tins and bake for 20-25 minutes or 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. Wheat + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whites whipped to stiff peaks lighten it and help it rise.
Wheat flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the muffins bake.
Corn meal
Adds coarse texture and a distinct corn flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the creamed base.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps browning during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the muffins rise and become light.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites hold air that gives the muffins lift. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, leaving dense muffins, so fold gently and only until just combined.

“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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