Name: Muffins of Wheat Flour
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons milk; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 teaspoons sugar; 2 egg yolks; 1 teaspoon salt; 2 teaspoons baking powder; white flour (enough to make a dough)

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 ↓

Muffins of Wheat Flour

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

Mix together the milk, butter, sugar, egg yolks, salt, and baking powder.
Stir in enough white flour to make a dough of proper consistency.
Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

Bake

Pour the batter into a well-greased pan.
Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) 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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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).

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

Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter, so the muffins rise and become light.
Egg yolks: Add richness and help bind the batter for a tender structure.
White flour: Forms the gluten network that gives the muffins their structure.
Butter: Adds fat, which softens the crumb and gives a richer flavor.
Milk: Adds moisture and helps hydrate the flour.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites beaten until stiff trap air that expands in the oven and lifts the batter. Folding gently keeps that air in, while stirring hard would deflate it and leave dense muffins.

“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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Muffins of Wheat Flour