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Corn Meal Muffins

A quick oven-baked cornmeal muffin made with eggs, sugar, sour cream, cornmeal, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Corn Meal Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs, then mix in the sugar and sour cream.

  2. Add the corn meal, flour, and baking soda, and stir until combined.

  3. Pour the batter into muffin rings.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as they set in the oven.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tenderness, and its acidity activates the baking soda.
Corn meal
Gives the muffins their coarse, grainy texture and corn flavor.
Flour
Provides the gluten network that gives the muffins their structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour cream to produce gas that makes the muffins rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Stir the batter only until combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes muffins tough and dense. Stop once the dry ingredients are just moistened; a few small lumps are fine. The baking soda starts reacting as soon as it meets the acidic sour cream, so the batter should go into the rings and into the oven without delay.

“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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