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Baked Bean Muffins

A muffin made with baked beans, flour, milk, egg, sugar, and Indian meal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,080 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Baked Bean Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Mash the baked beans to a paste.

  2. Add the beaten egg, sugar, salt, and milk; mix well.

  3. Sift in the flour and baking powder, then stir in the Indian meal.

Bake

  1. Mix thoroughly and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Beans + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,266 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

Cooked baked beans
Adds moisture, body, and a hearty texture to the batter.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the muffin structure as it bakes.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the muffins together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the wet batter and in the oven, helping the muffins rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.

The step that matters

Get the batter into the oven promptly after adding the baking powder. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it meets liquid. Waiting before baking lets some of that lift escape, which can leave the muffins flatter and denser.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, milk, sugar):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Milletfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, milk, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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