Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Rice Muffins
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine boiled rice, sweet milk, eggs, melted butter, sugar, and mix well.
Gradually add flour until a batter forms.
Add the baking powder last and beat the mixture hard.
Bake
Pour the batter into muffin rings.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter and flour 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the muffins rise and become light.
- Flour
- Forms the batter's base and gives the muffins their body.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor.
- Sweet milk
- Provides liquid to hydrate the flour and soften the batter.
- Boiled rice
- Adds moisture and a soft, tender crumb to the muffins.
The step that matters
Add the baking powder last and beat the mixture hard. Baking powder starts releasing gas once it contacts liquid, so adding it last and mixing quickly keeps that lift for the oven. Overmixing after that can knock out gas and toughen the crumb, so the timing matters.
“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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