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Bread

English Muffins

A simple bread made with flour, milk, yeast, salt, and eggs, baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

English Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the flour and hot milk, mixing well.

  2. Once the mixture cools slightly, stir in the yeast and let it rise until light.

  3. Add the well-beaten eggs and salt, mixing thoroughly.

Cook and serve

  1. Bake in rings on a well-greased, heated griddle, turning as you would pancakes.

  2. Split and butter before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the muffins their structure and chewy crumb.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the batter rise and become light and airy.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping bind the batter and set during cooking.
Hot milk
Adds moisture and softness, and its warmth helps start the dough rising.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool slightly before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by very high heat, so adding it to hot milk and flour can stop the batter from rising. Cooling to lukewarm keeps the yeast alive so it can produce gas and lighten the batter.

“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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