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Rye Muffins

A quick oven-baked rye muffin made with rye meal, all-purpose flour, sugar, milk, eggs, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Rye Muffins

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 ↓

Rye Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Mix the salt with the rye meal and flour.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the sugar with the eggs until well combined.

  4. Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture.

  5. Add the milk and mix quickly to form a batter, beating for a few more minutes.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into stone muffin cups.

  2. Bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 meal
Provides the distinctive earthy flavor and a dense, tender crumb.
All-purpose flour
Supplies gluten-forming structure that holds the muffins together.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give the muffins structure.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour and provides moisture for a tender interior.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Add the milk and mix quickly. Once liquid meets flour, gluten begins to develop. Mixing briefly to form a batter, and not longer, keeps the muffins from turning tough and dense. Rye meal has little gluten, so the flour mostly supplies the structure.

“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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