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Rice Muffins

Rice muffins are baked cakes made with flour, cornmeal, boiled rice, eggs, baking soda, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice 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.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, and boiled rice.

  3. In another bowl, beat the eggs separately.

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk.

  2. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until well combined. Beat the mixture very hard until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into muffin tins and bake 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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the muffins.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that helps the muffins rise.
Sour milk
Provides the liquid for the batter and its acidity activates the baking soda.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the muffins as its proteins set during baking.
Cornmeal
Adds a coarser texture and helps the muffins hold their shape.
Boiled rice
Adds moisture and a soft, tender crumb to the muffins.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk. Baking soda needs an acidic liquid to react and release gas. Dissolving it fully in the sour milk before mixing spreads the leavening evenly, so the muffins rise without pockets of soda or a bitter taste.

“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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