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Eye Muffins

A quick rye muffin made with sour milk, baking soda, and all-purpose flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Eye Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine rye flour, all-purpose flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.

  2. Add the egg and enough sour milk to mix into a stiff batter.

  3. Spoon the batter into muffin tins and bake until golden.

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. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Rye flour
Gives the muffins their characteristic earthy flavor and a denser, moister crumb than wheat flour alone.
All-purpose flour
Supplies gluten for structure, lightening the dense rye so the muffins hold their shape.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce carbon dioxide, lifting the muffins as they bake.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and its liquid hydrates the flours into a batter.

The step that matters

Mixing the batter to a stiff consistency. Add the sour milk gradually so the batter is stiff but not overworked. Overmixing develops gluten in the wheat flour, which can toughen the muffins, while too much liquid makes them flat and gummy.

“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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