Skip to main content
Dessert

Raised Doughnuts II

A yeast-based doughnut made with eggs, sugar, butter, potato yeast, baking soda, salt, and flour, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Raised Doughnuts II

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the potato yeast, baking soda, and salt, then stir in enough flour to make a stiff dough.

  3. Cover the bowl and let the dough rise overnight.

Shape and fry

  1. In the morning, roll out the dough and cut it into doughnut shapes.

  2. Let the cut doughnuts rise again until very light.

  3. Fry the doughnuts until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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
Add richness and help bind the dough into a structure that holds its shape.
Potato yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat, which softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and some browning during frying.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidity in the dough to release gas, adding lift.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and stiffness.

The step that matters

Let the cut doughnuts rise again until very light. Under-proofed doughnuts stay dense and may burst or stay doughy inside when fried, while over-proofed ones can collapse or absorb excess oil. The dough should look airy before it goes into the fat.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

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

You might also like

Deep-Fried Potato BallsDeep-Fried Potato Balls119 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes