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Dessert

Rice Muffins

A baked muffin made with flour, yeast, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, and boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Rice 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. If the rice is cold, soften it in a little of the warm milk.

  2. Rub the butter and sugar together, then add the well-beaten eggs.

  3. Mix in the flour and the remaining warm milk alternately.

  4. Finally, add the rice and yeast, mixing well.

  5. Let the mixture rise overnight.

Bake

  1. In the morning, fill muffin rings two-thirds full and let rise for 1 hour.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the muffins together as they rise and set.
Yeast
Produces gas during the long rise, making the muffins light and airy.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the muffins set and hold their shape.
Boiled rice
Adds moisture and a soft, tender crumb to the muffins.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavour.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and yeast to form a workable batter.

The step that matters

Overnight rise. The batter needs a long, slow rise for the yeast to develop gas and flavour. Rising too briefly leaves the muffins dense, while over-rising can cause them to collapse.

“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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