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 ↓
Wheat 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Mix the batter
In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, salt, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
In another bowl, whisk together the milk, egg, and melted butter.
Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients and stir until just mixed.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased muffin tin.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or 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.
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.
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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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the muffins together as they bake.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and helps set the crumb during baking.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and helps hydrate the flour for a tender crumb.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to help the muffins rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the muffins.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the muffins brown at the surface.
The step that matters
Stir the batter until just mixed. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes muffins tough and tunnelled. Stop once the dry ingredients are moistened, leaving a few small lumps.
“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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