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Dessert

75 Berkshire Muffins

A muffin made with cornmeal, flour, rice, sugar, baking powder, milk, egg, and butter, baked until golden.

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

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.

Make the batter

  1. Combine scalded milk with cornmeal and let stand for five minutes.

  2. Add cooked rice and sifted flour mixed with baking powder and sugar.

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

  4. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg white.

Bake

  1. Spoon the mixture 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

Cornmeal (in the method)
Gives the muffins a coarse, grainy texture and corn flavor.
Flour
Provides structure so the muffins hold their shape after baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the batter rise and turn light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown in the oven.
Egg
Adds richness and helps set the crumb as the muffins bake.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg white. Egg white holds air that makes the muffins light. Stirring vigorously or overmixing deflates it, leaving dense, flat muffins. Fold gently, just until no white streaks remain.

“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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