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Dessert

Indian Corn Muffins

A quick muffin made with cornmeal, wheat flour, buttermilk, and egg, baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Indian Corn Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg thoroughly and place it in a coffee cup.

  2. Add brown sugar and thick cream or butter.

  3. Fill the mixture with buttermilk or sour milk.

  4. Mix in cornmeal and wheat flour.

  5. Rub baking soda into the flour.

Bake

  1. Bake in muffin rings on a griddle.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + buttermilktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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.
Buttermilk or sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Cornmeal
Provides the main body and the characteristic grainy corn texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk or sour milk to produce gas that makes the muffins rise.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a slightly moist, caramel-like flavor.

The step that matters

Rub baking soda into the flour. Baking soda needs an acid, here the buttermilk or sour milk, to release gas and lift the batter. Mixing it evenly through the dry ingredients prevents pockets of bitterness and uneven rising.

“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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