Name: Stale Bread Muffins
Ingredients: 2 cups stale bread, cut into small pieces; 1 cup scalded milk; ⅓ cup water; 1 egg; ¼ cup flour; ½ teaspoon salt; 2 tablespoons sugar; 4 teaspoons baking powder; 1 tablespoon melted butter

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stale Bread Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

Soak the stale bread in scalded milk until softened.
Beat the mixture until smooth.
Add water, egg, flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder; blend well.
Stir in melted butter.

Bake

Pour into 10 greased muffin pans.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) 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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Stale bread: Soaks up the milk and gives the muffins a tender, bread-based crumb.
Egg: Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Flour: Provides structure that holds the muffins together as they bake.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking, helping the muffins rise and become light.
Melted butter: Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.

“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.