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Dessert

Yeast Muffins

A quick yeast muffin made with scalded milk, eggs, flour, sugar, butter, salt, and compressed yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Yeast 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. 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.

Make the batter

  1. Pour the scalded milk over the butter, salt, and sugar.

  2. Add the dissolved yeast to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the flour.

  4. Beat thoroughly.

  5. Set aside to rise overnight.

Finish and bake

  1. Beat the egg yolks well and add them.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Let rise for 15 minutes.

  4. Pour into greased pans.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 minutes, or cook on a griddle on the stove.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Yeast
Ferments the batter so it rises and gives the muffins an airy, light crumb.
Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whites, folded in, add lift and a tender structure.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the muffins their structure once baked.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and dissolves the yeast, adding moisture and softness.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and gentle browning.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives richer flavour.

The step that matters

Set aside to rise overnight. Yeast needs time and warmth to ferment the batter; too short a rise leaves the muffins dense, while the gas it produces is what gives them an airy texture.

“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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