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Dessert

Doughnuts

A fried sweet dough made with sugar, butter, milk, eggs, water, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and flour, coated in powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Doughnuts

Why it works: Walnut and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,230 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Cream the sugar and butter together until smooth.

  2. Add the beaten eggs.

  3. Mix in the milk, salt, water, and nutmeg.

  4. Gradually add flour until the dough is easy to handle.

  5. Roll the dough to a thickness of ½ inch.

Fry and coat

  1. Fry in hot lard until golden brown, about 30 minutes.

  2. After frying, roll each doughnut in powdered sugar.

Store

  1. Store in a covered stone jar.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 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

Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure as they set.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its body and shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the dough so the doughnuts puff and stay light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer, softer crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the surface brown during frying.
Milk
Adds moisture and dissolves sugar, softening the dough.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy and heavy. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks through. Steady heat gives an even, light result.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, egg, nutmeg, flour. 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.

More doughnuts recipes

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