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 ↓
Fine Muffins
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the eggs separately.
Make and bake the batter
In a bowl, mix the sugar, flour, sour milk, baking soda, melted butter, and baking powder.
Fold in the beaten eggs gently.
Pour the batter into well buttered muffin tins.
Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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).
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
- Add structure and richness, helping the muffins set and hold their shape as they bake.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the muffins once its proteins set in the oven.
- Sour milk
- Adds moisture and acidity, which reacts with the baking soda to help the muffins rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Baking powder
- Provides additional lift by releasing gas as the batter heats in the oven.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and helps browning.
The step that matters
Fold in the beaten eggs gently. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which toughens the muffins and can knock out the air needed for rise. Folding keeps the batter light and tender.
“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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