Name: Sour Milk Muffins
Ingredients: 2 eggs; 1 cup sour milk; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 1 tablespoon sugar; ½ teaspoon salt; 1½ cups sifted flour

Why it works: Milk and flour 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 ↓

Sour Milk Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

Beat the eggs until very light.
Add the sour milk with dissolved baking soda and mix well.
Stir in the sugar, salt, and sifted flour.

Bake

Preheat gem pans until hot and grease them well.
Fill the pans half full with the batter.
Bake for 20 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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.

Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and flour 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

Eggs: Add structure and richness, helping the muffins hold their shape as they set.
Sour milk: Adds moisture and acidity that react with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce carbon dioxide, giving the muffins rise.
Sifted flour: Provides the main structure, setting into the crumb as the muffins bake.

The step that matters

Preheat and grease the gem pans until hot. Hot, greased pans begin setting the batter's outside immediately, so the muffins release cleanly and develop a browned crust rather than sticking or spreading.

“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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Sour Milk Muffins