Name: One Egg Muffins
Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon sugar; 1 egg; 1 cup milk; 2 tablespoons butter, melted; 2 tablespoons lard, melted

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 ↓

One Egg Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar together in a bowl.
Beat the egg until light, then add the milk and mix with the dry ingredients.
Melt the butter and lard, then pour into the batter and mix well.

Bake

Pour the batter into greased muffin pans.
Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) 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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour: Provides the main structure that holds the muffins together as they bake.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter, helping the muffins rise and become light.
Egg: Adds structure and helps bind the batter as it sets in the oven.
Milk: Hydrates the flour and adds moisture, giving a softer crumb.
Butter: Adds fat for richness, tenderness, and flavor.
Lard: Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes to a moist texture.

“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.