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Dessert

The Queen of Doughnuts

A sweet fried doughnut made with butter, lard, sugar, eggs, milk, yeast, and flour, dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

The Queen of Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Heat the milk and sugar together.

  2. Mix in enough flour to make a stiff dough.

  3. Heat the butter and lard until very hot, then pour over the dough and mix well with your hands.

  4. Add the beaten eggs, cinnamon or nutmeg, and yeast; let the mixture stand until light.

Fry and finish

  1. Pinch off pieces about the size of a walnut, roll into balls, and fry in hot lard.

  2. Once done and warm, sift powdered sugar over the doughnuts.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Add richness and structure, helping the dough hold its shape while frying.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the mixture rise and turn light as it stands.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the stiff dough its body and structure.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, tenderising the dough and enriching its texture.
Lard
Fries the doughnuts, adding fat that browns the outside and carries flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the surface brown during frying.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the doughnuts absorb excess fat and turn greasy and heavy instead of browning quickly and sealing on the outside.

“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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