Skip to main content
Dessert

Delicate Graham Muffins

A light, sweet muffin made with graham and wheat flour, butter, sugar, milk, and leavening agents.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Delicate Graham Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the beaten egg and mix well.

  4. Stir in the sweet milk, saving a little to dissolve the baking soda.

  5. In another bowl, combine the graham flour, wheat flour, and cream of tartar.

  6. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture along with the dissolved baking soda.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into muffin tins or rings.

  2. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until golden.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Graham flour
Provides the bulk of the structure and a nutty, coarse texture.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten for structure so the muffins hold their shape.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer crumb.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the structure as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the muffins.
Cream of tartar
Acidic component that reacts with baking soda to make the muffins rise.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda and combining quickly. Baking soda only releases its rising gas once it reacts with an acid and moisture. Adding the dissolved soda with the dry ingredients and getting the batter into the tins promptly keeps that gas in the batter rather than letting it escape before baking.

“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.

You might also like

Wheat MuffinsWheat Muffins48 recipesWhole Wheat MuffinsWhole Wheat Muffins12 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes