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Dessert

Doughnut Snowballs

A sweet fried doughnut shaped into small balls, rolled in powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and biscuit match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 368 recipes. Both carry maltol, which smells caramel, sweet. The science ↓

Doughnut Snowballs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, cream together sugar, butter, and lard.

  2. Add milk and beaten eggs, mixing well.

  3. Stir in baking powder, nutmeg, and enough flour to form a biscuit dough.

  4. Roll out the dough and cut into 1½‑inch circles.

Fry and coat

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan and fry the doughnuts until golden brown.

  2. Remove and roll in pulverized sugar 2 or 3 times.

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 + biscuittop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together368 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  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. Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together889 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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 during frying.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the dough rise and become light and airy.
Flour
Forms the gluten-based structure that holds the dough together and gives it body.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour in the dough.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, crisp finish when fried.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the doughnuts brown during frying.

The step that matters

Frying the doughnuts until golden brown. The lard must be hot enough to cook the outside quickly and set the dough, while the inside cooks through. If it is too cool, the doughnuts absorb excess fat and turn greasy; if too hot, the outside darkens before the centre is cooked.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Turmericfits less well

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