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Dessert

Muffins, Soda

A quick griddle muffin made with flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, lard, milk, eggs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Muffins, Soda

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the milk.

  2. Stir the cream of tartar into the flour and sift it together.

Mix and cook

  1. Mix the flour with the dissolved soda and milk.

  2. Add lard, salt, and eggs, mixing until combined.

  3. Bake on a griddle like other breads 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the muffins as its proteins set during cooking.
Bicarbonate of soda
Reacts with the acid to release carbon dioxide gas, which lifts the batter.
Cream of tartar
Supplies the acid that reacts with the soda to make the muffins rise.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a softer texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and dissolves the soda.

The step that matters

Mixing the soda and cream of tartar into the batter. Bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar start releasing gas as soon as they meet liquid, so the batter should go onto the griddle promptly to keep its lift.

“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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