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Muffins

A yeast-based muffin made with milk, water, flour, salt, and egg whites, baked after overnight proofing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Muffins

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Dissolve the yeast in water to remove bitterness.

  2. Mix the yeast with warm milk and water.

  3. Add flour and salt to form a batter-like consistency.

  4. Beat the mixture well for half an hour.

  5. Whip the egg whites to a high froth.

  6. Gradually add the whipped egg whites to the batter.

  7. Beat the batter for an additional five minutes.

  8. Let the batter stand overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the muffins lightly.

  2. Bake them in a stove or oven.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Yeast
Ferments the batter so it rises and becomes light and airy.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the muffins together as the batter sets.
Egg whites
Whipped to a froth, they add air and lightness to the batter.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter and helps browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Gradually add the whipped egg whites to the batter. Folding the foam in gradually keeps the air bubbles intact. Adding it all at once or beating hard after folding knocks out the air and leaves the muffins dense.

“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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