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 ↓
Muffins
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Beat the eggs with the lard in a bowl.
Mix in the sour milk and baking soda.
Add flour until the mixture reaches the consistency of pound cake.
Bake
Bake in heated muffin 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.
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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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
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
- Lard
- Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture in the crumb.
- Sour milk
- Supplies moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas that lifts the muffins.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure that sets as the muffins bake.
The step that matters
Add flour until the mixture reaches the consistency of pound cake. Flour builds the structure, and the batter's thickness decides how the muffins rise and set. Too little flour leaves them loose and flat, while too much makes them dense and tough as gluten develops with mixing.
“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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