Skip to main content
Dessert

Raised Doughnuts

A fried doughnut made from a biscuit dough with yeast, butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and eggs, dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Raised Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Make a sponge with warm water or milk and yeast; let it rise until very light.

  2. Add butter or lard, sugar, salt, baking soda dissolved in water, cinnamon, nutmeg, and beaten eggs.

  3. Stir in enough sifted flour to achieve biscuit dough consistency; knead well.

  4. Cover and let rise until doubled in size.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the dough to ½ inch thick; cut into small rounds or strips.

  2. Place on greased tins, cover, and let rise again.

  3. Fry in very hot lard until golden brown.

  4. Dust with powdered sugar while warm.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Cinnamon + biscuittop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together312 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the sponge and dough rise and turn light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the dough hold its shape and become tender.
Butter or sweet lard
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer mouthfeel in the finished doughnut.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the doughnut brown during frying.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its body and structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough's acidity to add some extra lift and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Frying in very hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, doughnuts absorb excess fat and turn greasy and pale. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks through. Steady, very hot fat seals the surface quickly so the dough puffs and cooks evenly.

“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

Baking Powder BiscuitBaking Powder Biscuit119 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesSour Milk BiscuitSour Milk Biscuit27 recipes