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Dessert

Kalamazoo Muffins

A quick muffin made with sour cream or milk, flour, baking soda, salt, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Kalamazoo 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.

Mix the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the sour cream or milk, flour, baking soda, salt, melted butter, and eggs.

  2. Beat the mixture thoroughly, then dissolve the baking soda in 2 teaspoons of boiling water and add it to the bowl.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased gem pans or greased muffin rings.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 to 15 minutes, or on a hot, greased griddle.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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
Provides the structure that holds the muffins together as they bake.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tenderness, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour cream to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that gives a rich flavour and a softer crumb.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda and adding it to the bowl. Baking soda needs an acid to activate it, and the sour cream supplies that acid. Dissolving it in boiling water spreads it evenly through the batter so the muffins rise uniformly rather than in patches.

“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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