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Dessert

Soda Doughnuts

A fried doughnut made with flour, sugar, spices, sour milk, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Soda Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat lard in a frying kettle on the back of the stove.

  2. In a large bowl, mix flour, salt, baking soda, brown sugar, cinnamon, mace, and allspice.

  3. If using, cream the butter and drop it into the center of the flour mixture.

Make and fry the dough

  1. Pour the sour milk into the center of the flour mixture and mix briskly with a chopping knife to form a dough.

  2. Roll out the dough and fry in the hot lard.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 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. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 dough together and sets when fried.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that leavens the doughnuts.
Sour milk or buttermilk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tenderness and moisture to the dough.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and molasses flavor, and helps the surface brown when fried.

The step that matters

Mix the dough briskly with the sour milk. Mixing just until the dough comes together keeps it tender; overworking develops gluten and makes the doughnuts tough. The acid in the milk must meet the baking soda promptly for good rise.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, milk, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, milk, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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