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Dessert

Tennessee Muffins

A quick, sweet cornmeal and flour muffin baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Tennessee Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift together corn meal, flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder.

  2. Rub in cold lard or butter.

  3. Beat the eggs and mix with milk, then combine with the dry ingredients to form a batter similar to cupcake batter.

Bake

  1. Grease muffin rings well and fill them two-thirds full.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Corn meal
Provides the coarse, crumbly texture characteristic of these muffins.
Flour
Builds the structure that holds the muffin together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat, making the muffins rise and turn light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Lard or butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Milk
Hydrates the dry ingredients and adds moisture and tenderness.

The step that matters

Fill the muffin rings two-thirds full. Overfilling makes the batter spill over and bake unevenly, while underfilling leaves too little batter to rise into a full muffin. Leaving room lets the leavening lift the batter as it heats.

“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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