Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Corn Mkal Muffins
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the batter
In a bowl, stir together the cream or milk and the yolks of the eggs.
Sift the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, and sugar into a separate bowl.
Combine the dry ingredients with the milk and egg yolks, and mix well.
Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.
Bake and serve
Grease muffin rings with butter and pour in the batter.
Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown and serve immediately.
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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 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 + sugartop 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).
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
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites add lift and a light texture.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides gluten structure that holds the muffins together.
- Yellow cornmeal
- Gives the muffins their corn flavor and a coarser, crumbly texture.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter to make the muffins rise.
- Cream or milk
- Adds moisture and richness, hydrating the flour and cornmeal.
The step that matters
Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air bubbles that give lift. Stirring vigorously deflates them, leaving dense muffins, so fold just until no streaks remain.
“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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