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Dessert

Muffins, No. 1

A simple muffin made with flour, milk, sugar, eggs, baking soda, cream of tartar, butter, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Muffins, No. 1

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 the batter

  1. Mix the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt) and sift them together.

  2. Melt the butter in boiling water.

  3. Beat the eggs until light.

  4. Add the milk to the eggs.

  5. Stir the milk and egg mixture into the flour mixture.

  6. Add the melted butter.

  7. Beat thoroughly until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into buttered muffin pans.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 25 to 30 minutes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 muffin together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to help the muffins rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lifts the muffins.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavour.

The step that matters

Beat the batter only until well combined. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form, and overmixing makes muffins tough. Mixing the wet and dry ingredients gently keeps them tender while the acid and baking soda still work to lift them.

“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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