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Indian Meal Muffins

A cornmeal muffin made with boiling water, butter, salt, yeast, and eggs, baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Indian Meal Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Pour boiling water over the cornmeal, stirring constantly until a thick batter forms.

  2. Let the batter cool slightly, then add the butter, salt, yeast, and beaten eggs.

  3. Set the mixture in a warm place for 2 hours.

Cook and serve

  1. Stir the batter smooth and bake small cakes on a griddle.

  2. Cook until one side is a rich brown, then turn to brown the other side.

  3. Serve the muffins hot on a dish.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Forms the thick base and body of the batter.
Yeast
Produces gas during the warm rest, so the batter rises and becomes lighter.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the cakes hold together.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps browning on the griddle.

The step that matters

Cook until one side is a rich brown before turning. Turning too early tears the cakes, since the set side needs time to firm up. A deep, even brown on the first side also gives the best flavor and color from the sugars and proteins reacting with heat.

“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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