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Dessert

Bye Muffins

A muffin made with sour milk, rye flour, and brown sugar.

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 ↓

Bye 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

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make and bake the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sour milk, baking soda, butter, eggs, brown sugar, and white flour.

  2. Add enough rye flour to make the mixture stiff.

  3. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into muffin tins.

  4. Bake for about 20 minutes until golden.

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 + ryetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + ryetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to make the muffins rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, lightening the crumb.
Eggs
Provide structure and binding that hold the muffin together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
White flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the muffins their main structure.
Rye flour
Stiffens the batter, adding body and a firmer, denser crumb.

The step that matters

Add enough rye flour to make the mixture stiff. The batter must be thick enough to hold its shape in the tins. Too much liquid makes the muffins spread and turn out dense, while the baking soda needs to be mixed in promptly so its reaction with the sour milk lifts the batter in the oven.

“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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