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Dessert

German Doughnuts

A yeast‑free doughnut made from milk, eggs, butter, flour, and fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

German Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Boil the milk.

  2. Pour the hot milk over 1 pint of flour.

  3. Stir until smooth.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

  5. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs.

  6. Mix well.

  7. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  8. Add salt.

  9. Add enough flour to form a soft dough.

Shape and fry

  1. Flour a surface.

  2. Turn the dough onto it.

  3. Roll it into pieces the thickness of your finger.

  4. Shape them into rings.

  5. Fry the doughnuts in plenty of boiling lard 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Yolks enrich the dough and beaten whites lighten it, giving a tender, airy texture.
Flour
Forms the dough structure that holds the doughnuts together when fried.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the dough a soft, tender crumb.
Melted butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and contributes richness and flavor.

The step that matters

Frying in plenty of boiling lard. The lard must be hot and deep enough so the doughnuts cook quickly and brown on the outside before absorbing excess fat. Oil that is too cool makes greasy, heavy doughnuts.

“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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