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Dessert

Muffins

Yeast dough muffins made with flour, milk, ale, salt, and optional butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Muffins

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 ↓

Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl.

  2. Mix in the milk-warm liquid and ale or yeast.

  3. Stir the mixture well for 15 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture into the flour.

  5. Knead the dough until it is light.

  6. Let the dough rise for 1 hour.

Shape and cook

  1. Divide the dough into walnut-sized pieces and roll each into a ball.

  2. Place the balls on a floured surface.

  3. Cover the balls with a flannel.

  4. Bake the first batch.

  5. Turn the muffins when the bottom changes color.

  6. Ensure the cooking surface is not too hot.

  7. Adjust the heat if necessary.

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. 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 + beertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Beer + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together680 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

Fine white flour
Provides the gluten network that traps gas and gives the muffins their structure.
Milk-warm liquid
Hydrates the flour to form dough and gives the yeast a warm environment to work.
Ale or yeast
Produces carbon dioxide gas as it ferments, which makes the dough rise and become light.
Coarse sea salt
Controls yeast activity and adds flavour to the dough.

The step that matters

Keep the cooking surface not too hot. If the surface is too hot, the outside browns and sets before the inside is cooked through and the rising dough has finished expanding. Checking the heat and turning the muffins when the bottom changes colour helps them cook evenly.

“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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