Skip to main content
Dessert

Wheaten Muffins

A quick, fluffy muffin made with flour, buttermilk, eggs, lard, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Wheaten 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, buttermilk, and dissolved baking soda.

  3. Add the egg yolk and salt, and mix until combined.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  5. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.

  6. Stir in the melted lard.

Bake

  1. Spoon the batter into a greased muffin tin.

  2. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the muffins together as they set.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with baking soda to help the muffins rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks, they trap air that adds lift and a light texture.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the batter while contributing to tenderness.
Melted lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes to a moist texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten egg whites hold air that gives lift. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam and produces a denser muffin, so fold gently until just combined.

“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.

You might also like

Buttermilk PieButtermilk Pie12 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes