Skip to main content
Baking

75 Berkshire Muffins

A muffin made with cornmeal, flour, cooked rice, sugar, baking powder, salt, scalded milk, egg, and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Corn and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 933 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

75 Berkshire Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Combine corn meal and scalded milk; let stand for five minutes.

  2. Add cooked rice and flour mixed with baking powder and salt.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolk and add it along with melted butter.

  4. In another bowl, beat the egg white until stiff and dry, then fold it into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Spoon the batter into muffin tins and bake at 400°F (200°C) 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. Corn + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together933 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Egg
Yolk enriches the batter, while whipped white adds lift and an airy crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the muffins rise in the oven.
Corn meal
Gives the muffins their grainy texture and golden colour.
Flour
Provides structure so the muffins hold their shape after baking.
Cooked rice
Adds moisture and a tender texture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg white. Whipped egg white traps air that gives lift. Stirring it in vigorously knocks out those bubbles, so fold gently until just combined to keep the muffins light.

“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.

You might also like

Cornmeal Griddle CakesCornmeal Griddle Cakes24 recipesCorn Breakfast CakesCorn Breakfast Cakes20 recipesDelicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipes