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Dessert

Imperial Crullers

A fried dough pastry made with sugar, milk, eggs, butter, flour, spices, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Imperial Crullers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, and butter.

  2. Add the milk, spices, and baking powder, then mix in the flour.

  3. Place another cup of flour on a clean surface, turn the dough out onto it, and knead until stiff enough to roll out to ¼ inch thick.

Shape and fry

  1. Cut the dough into squares and make three or four incisions in each square.

  2. Lift the squares by taking alternate strips between your fingers and thumbs.

  3. Drop the crullers into hot lard and fry 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure as they set in the hot lard.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the dough.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the dough so the fried crullers rise and stay tender.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff dough and its shape while frying.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fried crullers brown.

The step that matters

Knead until stiff enough to roll out to ¼ inch thick. Kneading develops gluten so the dough holds its shape when cut and twisted. Dough that is too soft may spread or absorb excess fat while frying.

“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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