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Dessert

Little Muffins for Afternoon Tea

Small sultana muffins made with flour, baking soda, baking powder, milk, lard or butter, and baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Little Muffins for Afternoon Tea

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Mix the dry ingredients together.

  2. Rub in the lard or butter until combined.

  3. Add milk to form a light dough.

  4. Roll out the dough very lightly to about ½ inch thick.

Cut and bake

  1. Cut out rounds with a small cutter.

  2. Bake immediately in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) or on a griddle.

Serve

  1. Split the muffins open, butter them, and serve hot.

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.

  1. Butter + milktop 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. Flour + milktop 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 main structure of the dough once it is mixed with liquid.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid and liquid in the dough to produce gas that makes the muffins rise.
Baking powder
Releases gas when wet and heated, adding lift to the muffins.
Lard or butter
Coats flour particles, shortening the dough and giving a tender, crumbly texture.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and binds the dough, adding moisture and softness.
Sultanas
Add sweetness and chewy moisture throughout the muffins.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after cutting. Baking powder and baking soda start releasing gas as soon as they meet liquid. Waiting before baking lets that gas escape, so the muffins rise less and turn out denser.

“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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