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Dessert

Corn Muffins

A batter of cornmeal, flour, milk, sugar, butter, baking powder, eggs, and salt baked into muffins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Corn Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot 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. In a bowl, mix the cornmeal, milk, egg yolks, sugar, and melted butter.

  2. In another bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  3. Add the flour mixture to the cornmeal mixture and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Grease muffin pans and pour the batter in.

  2. Bake for about 20-25 minutes or 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Cornmeal
Provides the corn flavour and the coarse, tender crumb of the muffins.
All-purpose flour
Gives the batter gluten-based structure so the muffins hold their shape.
Eggs
Whipped whites trap air for lift, while the yolks add richness and help bind the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter as it heats, helping the muffins rise.
Melted butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Milk
Moistens the batter and hydrates the cornmeal and flour.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold trapped air that gives the muffins lift. Stir them in gently with a spatula, using broad strokes. Overmixing knocks out that air and leaves dense, flat muffins.

“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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