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Dessert

One Egg Muffins

A simple muffin recipe using one egg, flour, baking powder, sugar, butter, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl.

  3. Melt the butter and set aside.

Make the batter

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg until light, then add the milk.

  2. Combine the egg and milk mixture with the dry ingredients and stir until just mixed.

  3. Add the melted butter and stir briefly to create a smooth batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased muffin pans.

  2. Bake for about 15 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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 + 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 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the muffins together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the muffins rise and turn light.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the muffins set as they bake.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter its moisture and tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the finished muffins.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the muffins brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Stir the batter until just mixed. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes muffins tough and dense instead of tender. Stop once the dry ingredients are moistened, leaving a few small lumps.

“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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