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Dessert

Entire Wheat Muffins

A quick whole wheat muffin made with flour, sugar, baking soda, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Entire Wheat 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the entire wheat flour, sugar, cream of tartar, and salt.

  3. In another bowl, combine the milk and water, then dissolve the baking soda in the water.

  4. Beat the egg until light and add it to the dry ingredients.

  5. Pour in the milk and water mixture, and stir until combined.

Bake

  1. Turn the batter into well-greased muffin pans.

  2. Bake for 25 to 30 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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Entire wheat flour
Provides the main structure, while its bran and germ add a nutty, denser texture.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the muffins hold together as they set.
Cream of tartar
Acidic, reacting with baking soda to release gas that helps the muffins rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce carbon dioxide, which lifts the muffins.
Milk
Supplies liquid that hydrates the flour and adds softness and browning.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the muffin crust brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Stir the wet and dry ingredients only until combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the wheat flour, making muffins tough. The baking soda and cream of tartar start releasing gas once they meet liquid, so the batter should go into the oven promptly.

“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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