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Dessert

Graham Muffins

A muffin made with Graham flour, wheat flour, sour milk, sour cream, baking soda, molasses, and salt.

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

Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Graham Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat your muffin irons until hot.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine Graham flour, wheat flour, sour milk, and sour cream.

  2. Add baking soda, molasses, and salt; mix until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the hot muffin irons.

  2. Bake 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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Graham flour
Provides the main structure and the coarse, nutty texture of the muffins.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten for structure, helping the muffins hold their shape.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Sour cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving a tender crumb and a richer flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and sour cream to leaven the muffins.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deeper colour that aids browning.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into the hot muffin irons. Batter poured into hot irons starts setting and browning right away, so the muffins rise and form a crust. Cold irons let the batter spread and cook unevenly.

“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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