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Raised Muffins

A yeast-leavened wheat flour muffin made with milk, lard, eggs, and salt, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Raised Muffins

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 dough

  1. Sift the flour into a bowl and add a pinch of salt.

  2. Warm the milk and mix in the lard, then stir this into the flour.

  3. Beat the eggs until light and add them to the mixture.

  4. Once thoroughly mixed, add the yeast.

Rise and bake

  1. Set the mixture aside to rise for about 3 hours until very light.

  2. Bake in muffin rings in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Serve immediately after baking; do not cut them.

  4. If desired for breakfast, prepare the mixture the night before.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 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. 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

Wheat flour
Provides the structure that holds the risen muffins together as they bake.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, causing the mixture to rise and become light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set and hold its shape in the oven.
Sweet milk
Provides moisture and hydrates the flour so the dough can develop.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture rise until very light. Yeast needs enough time to ferment and build gas bubbles; rising too briefly leaves the muffins dense, while the dough must still be handled gently so the trapped gas is not lost before baking.

“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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