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Dessert

Muffins, for Breakfast

A simple batter muffin made with eggs, milk, butter, sugar, salt, baking powder, and flour, brushed with sweetened milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Muffins, for Breakfast

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, for Breakfast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the milk, melted butter, sugar, salt, and baking powder.

  2. Gradually add flour until a batter forms.

  3. Pour the batter into muffin rings.

Bake and finish

  1. When the muffins are almost done, brush the tops with sweetened milk.

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. Butter + flourtop 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Add structure as they set, and bind the batter together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the muffins rise and turn light.
Flour
Forms the body of the batter, giving the muffins their structure as they bake.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it can be poured.
Melted butter
Adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and adds richness.

The step that matters

Brushing the tops near the end of baking. Sweetened milk brushed on at the right moment browns the surface through milk sugars and proteins. Brushing too early can cause the tops to darken or burn before the centre is done.

“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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