Name: Berkshire Muffins
Ingredients: ½ cup scalded milk; 1 egg; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon fat; 4 teaspoons baking powder; ½ cup corn meal; 1 cup wheat flour; 1 cup cooked rice

Why it works: Corn and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Berkshire Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Pour the scalded milk over the corn meal and let it stand for five minutes.
Add the other ingredients, folding in the beaten egg white last.

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.

Corn + wheattop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together465 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Corn + ricetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together933 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Wheat + ricetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together423 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).