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Dessert

Geaham Muffins

A muffin made with Graham flour, wheat flour, sour milk, sour cream, baking soda, molasses, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Geaham Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven until hot.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine Graham flour and wheat flour.

  2. Add sour milk and enough sour cream to fill the cup.

  3. Mix in baking soda, molasses, and salt.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the hot oven and bake.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

Graham flour
Provides the bran-rich structure and the nutty, hearty texture of the muffins.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten for structure, helping the muffins hold their shape while baking.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the muffins rise.
Sour cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and sour cream to leaven the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth of flavour and moisture, and helps browning.

The step that matters

Get the batter into the hot oven promptly. Baking soda starts reacting with the acidic sour milk as soon as it is mixed. Delaying the bake lets gas escape before the batter sets, which can leave muffins flat and dense.

“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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