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
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
Heat a cast iron plate over a coal fire.
In a bowl, mix warm milk and water with yeast and salt.
Stir in flour until the dough is light, then set aside to rise for 1 hour.
Shape the muffins
Divide the dough into walnut-sized pieces and roll into balls.
Cover the balls with a flannel.
Shape the balls.
Flatten the balls into muffin shapes and place on the heated plate.
Cook
Cook until the bottoms change color, then flip to cook the other side.
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.
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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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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the muffins their structure and chew.
- Mild ale yeast
- Ferments the dough so it rises and becomes light and airy.
- Warm milk and water
- Hydrates the flour and warms the yeast to start fermentation.
- Egg
- Adds richness and helps bind the dough and add tenderness.
- Butter
- Adds fat for flavor and a softer crumb.
The step that matters
Cook until the bottoms change color, then flip. The cast iron plate must be hot enough to brown the base evenly. Flipping too early tears the dough, while cooking too long on one side dries the crumb before the other side sets.
“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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