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Dessert

A Ver Y Useful Ba Tter for Muffins, Etc

A simple batter for muffins using eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, salt, and melted lard or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

A Ver Y Useful Ba Tter for Muffins, Etc

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Separate the egg whites and yolks.

  2. Mix the milk with the egg yolks.

  3. Combine the baking powder and flour, then stir in the milk and egg yolks with the salt.

  4. Add the melted lard or butter and stir until smooth.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

Bake

  1. For muffins, bake in greased muffin rings on a hot, greased griddle.

  2. For oven muffins, bake in gem pans or greased rings for 15 to 20 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Alternatively, bake in a round tin for 25 to 35 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Eggs
Yolks add richness and emulsify the batter, while whites beaten and folded in lighten the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, causing the batter to rise and become light.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the muffins their structure.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture, tenderness and some browning from its milk sugars.
Lard or butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a rich flavour.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Overmixing knocks air out of the whites, so the batter loses the lift they provide. Fold gently until just combined to keep the batter 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.

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