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 ↓
To Make Muffins
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Combine flour, egg, melted butter, milk, and yeast in a bowl.
Beat the mixture thoroughly.
Add more milk if needed to achieve a light paste.
Cover and let it rise in a warm place for 2 hours.
Shape and cook
Shape the dough into small flat cakes.
Bake on a hot stove, turning them to cook both sides.
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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Butter + milktop 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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Flour + milktop 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 main structure of the dough once mixed with liquid.
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds structure and richness to the crumb.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the finished muffins.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form a paste.
- Yeast
- Ferments the dough during rising, producing gas that lightens the texture.
The step that matters
Let the dough rise in a warm place. Yeast needs warmth to ferment and produce the gas that makes the dough light. If it is too cold, the rise will be slow or weak, and the muffins will turn out dense.
“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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