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 slightly stiffer than biscuit dough.
Roll out the dough to ¼ inch thick and cut with a fried-cake cutter, making a hole in the center.

Fry and drain

Heat lard in a deep pan until boiling.
Fry the cut dough in the hot lard, turning constantly until golden brown.
Remove from the fat and drain until no longer dripping.

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 as they set in the frying fat.
Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with the baking soda, helping the dough rise and tenderize.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas, lightening the dough.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the golden browning on the fried surface.
Melted butter: Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor in the dough.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard. The fat must be hot enough to cook the dough quickly. If it is too cool, the crullers absorb grease and turn heavy and oily; turning them keeps browning even.

“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