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Dessert

Editor’s Doughnuts

A fried doughnut made with buttermilk, lard, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and flour, then coated in powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Editor’s Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk.

  2. In a bowl, mix the sugar, buttermilk, egg, lard, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff enough to roll out.

  4. Roll out the dough and cut into shapes.

Fry and finish

  1. Drop the shapes into boiling lard and fry until golden.

  2. Remove and let cool slightly, then dip in powdered sugar.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release gas, helping the doughnuts rise and turn light.
Buttermilk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness to the dough.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping bind the dough together.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and, when hot, frying the doughnuts to a golden crust.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during frying.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff dough together and lets it be rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Frying in boiling lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the doughnuts absorb excess fat and turn greasy; if it is too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks through.

“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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