Name: Crullers or Fried Cakes
Ingredients: 1½ cups sugar; 1 cup sour milk; 2 eggs; 2 tablespoons melted butter; ½ nutmeg, grated; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda

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 ↓

Crullers or Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

In a bowl, mix sugar, sour milk, eggs, melted butter, grated nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda.
Stir until the mixture is a little stiffer than biscuit dough.

Shape and fry

Roll out the dough to ¼ inch thick and cut with a fried‑cake cutter, making a hole in the center.
Fry in hot 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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,685 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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: Bind the dough and add richness and structure to the crullers.
Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with baking soda to lift the dough and add tenderness.
Baking soda: Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that leavens the dough.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the fried exterior turn golden brown.
Melted butter: Adds fat that gives the crullers a tender crumb and richer flavor.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the crullers absorb excess fat and turn greasy before the outside sets. Hot fat seals the surface quickly, keeping the inside tender and the crullers light.

“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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Crullers or Fried Cakes