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Dessert

Rice Muffins

Rice muffins are baked pastries made with flour, rice, eggs, butter, milk, baking powder, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Rice Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix and sift the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Make the batter

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg and combine it with half of the milk.

  2. Add the cooked rice to the egg mixture along with the remaining milk.

  3. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.

  4. Finally, fold in the melted butter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into muffin tins and bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the muffins together as they set.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the muffins rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter and helps it combine smoothly.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps the muffins brown.
Cooked rice
Adds moisture and a tender, soft crumb to the muffins.

The step that matters

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mixing only until combined keeps the batter tender. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which can make muffins tough and 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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