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 ↓
Corn 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Mix the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt, then sift the dry mixture together.
Mix the batter
Beat the egg lightly, then add the milk and melted butter.
Combine the wet and dry ingredients, stirring until just mixed.
Pour the batter into a greased muffin tin.
Bake
Bake for 20 minutes.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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 gluten structure that holds the muffins together.
- Cornmeal
- Gives the muffins their coarse texture and corn flavor.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the muffins rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acts as an acid that works with baking soda to help the muffins rise.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and helps hydrate the flour and cornmeal into a batter.
The step that matters
Combine the wet and dry ingredients, stirring until just mixed. Once liquid meets flour, gluten starts to form. Overmixing develops too much gluten, which makes muffins tough and tunnelled. Stop when no dry streaks remain, leaving lumps in the batter.
“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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