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Dessert

Combination Substitute Muffins

A muffin made with rice and barley flour, milk, fat, syrup, eggs, baking powder, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 568 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Combination Substitute 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the milk, fat, syrup, and eggs.

  2. In another bowl, combine the rice flour, barley flour, baking powder, and salt.

  3. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased muffin tin.

Bake

  1. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Rice + barleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together568 recipes

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

  2. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Flour + barleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + barleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Rice flour
Provides a tender, delicate crumb with little gluten structure.
Barley flour
Adds body and structure to the crumb, with some gluten-like framework.
Eggs
Add structure and help bind the batter as they set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the muffins to rise.
Milk
Provides moisture and helps hydrate the flours into a batter.
Syrup
Adds sweetness and helps the muffins brown and stay moist.

The step that matters

Stirring the batter until just combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the wheat-free flours' remaining structure and the batter becomes tough. Mixing only until the dry ingredients are moistened keeps the muffins tender and prevents tunnels.

“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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