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English Muffins

A yeast‑leavened batter made with milk, butter, sugar, salt, and flour, baked on a greased griddle in muffin rings.

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 ↓

English Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Scald the milk and dissolve the butter, sugar, and salt in it.

  2. Once cooled, add the yeast dissolved in warm water.

  3. Sift in enough flour to make a thin drop batter and beat well.

  4. Set aside until very light.

Cook the muffins

  1. Preheat a greased griddle and greased muffin rings.

  2. Fill the rings halfway with batter, preserving its lightness.

  3. Allow muffins to rise and brown slowly.

  4. When well colored, turn them over and brown the other side.

Store the remaining batter

  1. For remaining batter, thin with cool milk until it pours in a heavy stream.

  2. Cover and set aside in a cool place until needed.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour 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 batter's structure, which sets as the muffins cook and holds their shape.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the batter light and raises the muffins as they rise.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and gives the batter its body.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and contributes richness and flavor.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and promotes browning on the griddle.

The step that matters

Fill the rings halfway with batter, preserving its lightness. The batter must keep the air and gas built up during rising. Deflating it by spooning or pressing it in makes the muffins dense, and filling only halfway leaves room for them to rise.

“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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