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Oatmeal Muffins

A quick baked muffin made with oatmeal, flour, milk, sugar, egg, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and oats are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,119 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Oatmeal 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 the batter

  1. Cook oatmeal using 1 part oatmeal to 2 parts water.

  2. In a bowl, mix milk, oatmeal, egg, and melted fat.

  3. Sift together the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder, then add to the wet mixture.

  4. Stir until just combined.

Bake

  1. Spoon the batter into a greased muffin tin.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 25 to 30 minutes.

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. Milk + oatstop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,119 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the muffin together as it sets.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, so the muffins rise and become light.
Oatmeal
Adds moisture and a tender, hearty texture to the batter.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and softness to the crumb.

The step that matters

Stir until just combined. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Overmixing toughens the batter and makes the muffins dense, so stop as soon as no dry flour remains.

“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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