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Dessert

Muffins

A yeast-based batter made with milk, flour, butter, sugar, and mild ale yeast, shaped into balls, then baked on a heated plate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Muffins

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 ↓

Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix warm milk, yeast, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Add flour and melted butter, then stir until combined.

  3. Knead the dough lightly.

  4. Set the dough aside to rise for 1 hour.

Shape and cook

  1. Divide the dough into walnut-sized pieces and shape the pieces into balls.

  2. Cover the balls with a flannel to keep them warm.

  3. Once risen, flatten the balls into muffin shapes.

  4. Cook on a heated plate, turning them when the bottoms change color.

  5. Avoid burning by moderating the heat with bricks if necessary.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the gluten network that gives the muffins their structure.
Mild ale yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.
Warm milk
Hydrates the flour and helps the dough form a soft, supple texture.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes richness.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and promotes browning on the cooking surface.

The step that matters

Cook on a heated plate and control the heat. The surface sugars and proteins brown quickly, so the bottoms can scorch before the centers cook through. Turning at the right color and moderating heat keeps the muffins evenly cooked.

“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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