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Yeast-Raised Muffins

A quick yeast-raised muffin made with milk, butter, yeast, salt, flour, egg white, and baking soda, fried on a greased griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Yeast-Raised Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix milk, melted butter, yeast, salt, and enough flour to create a thick batter in the evening.

  2. Cover the mixture and leave it in a warm place overnight.

Cook

  1. In the morning, add the beaten egg white and a pinch of baking soda to the batter.

  2. Heat a greased griddle and fry the batter in greased muffin rings 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Yeast
Ferments the batter overnight, producing gas that lightens and raises the muffins.
Egg white
Adds structure and lift when beaten into the risen batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's acidity to release gas, adding extra rise.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavour.
Flour
Forms the thick batter structure that holds the muffins together.

The step that matters

Leaving the batter to rise overnight in a warm place. Yeast needs time and warmth to ferment the batter. Too little time or a cold spot leaves the muffins dense, so the batter must rise fully before cooking.

“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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