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 ↓
Soft Muffins
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Warm the milk and butter together, then add the salt.
Beat the eggs until very light, then stir them into the milk and butter mixture.
Stir in the yeast, then add enough flour to make a thick batter.
Cover the mixture and let it rise in a warm place for about 3 hours.
Bake and serve
Once risen, grease your baking iron and muffin rings.
Set the rings on the iron and pour the batter into them.
Bake until light brown.
When ready to serve, pull them open instead of cutting with a knife to keep them light.
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.
-
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter and flour 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
- Eggs
- Beaten eggs add structure and lightness to the batter.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour into a batter.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
- Brewer's yeast
- Ferments during rising to leaven the batter and make it airy.
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the muffins their body.
The step that matters
Letting the batter rise. Yeast needs a warm place and enough time to produce gas. Under-rising leaves the muffins dense, while the batter must hold the gas it builds to become light and open.
“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
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.