Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Corn Meal Muffins
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Scald cornmeal with boiling water and allow to cool.
Add salt, sugar, beaten eggs, and flour to the mixture.
Fry
Drop spoonfuls of the batter into hot lard.
Fry until 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.
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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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Cornmeal
- Forms the main body of the muffins; scalding softens its starch so it absorbs moisture.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set during cooking.
- Flour
- Adds a little extra structure to help the spoonfuls hold their shape.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during frying.
- Lard
- Conducts heat for frying and gives the outside a crisp, browned crust.
The step that matters
Drop the batter into hot lard. The lard must be hot enough to set the outside quickly. A cool pan lets the batter soak up grease and turn heavy and greasy instead of crisp and browned.
“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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