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 ↓
Muffin
Ingredients
Directions
Beat the eggs into the lard.
Mix in the sour milk and baking soda.
Add enough flour to achieve the consistency of pound cake.
Bake in heated rings.
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.
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Eggs
- Provide structure and richness, binding the batter as they set in the oven.
- Sour milk
- Supplies moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, helping the muffins rise.
- Lard
- Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavour in the crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure and sets the batter to a pound cake consistency.
The step that matters
Mix in the sour milk and baking soda. Baking soda needs an acid to react with, so the sour milk must be added with the soda promptly. The gas released lifts the batter, and waiting lets much of that lift escape before baking.
“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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