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 ↓
Corn Meal 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.
Make the batter
Sift the cornmeal and mix in the salt.
Stir in the hot milk and melted butter or lard until combined.
Let the mixture cool slightly, then stir in the beaten eggs.
Bake
Pour the batter into well-greased muffin rings or small tin shapes.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Provides the main structure and the grainy, crumbly texture of the muffins.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help set the muffins while adding richness and moisture.
- Hot milk
- Moistens the cornmeal and softens its grains so the batter comes together.
- Butter or lard
- Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavour in the crumb.
The step that matters
Cool the batter before adding the eggs. The batter is made with hot milk, so it must cool slightly before the beaten eggs go in. Adding eggs to very hot batter can partly cook them and leave lumps, and a cooler batter mixes into a smoother, more even crumb.
“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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