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German Doughnuts

German doughnuts are fried rings made from a milk-based dough with eggs and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

German Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Boil the milk and pour it hot over the flour; beat until smooth.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites and add salt.

  4. Add more flour until a soft dough forms.

Shape and fry

  1. Flour your work surface, turn out the dough, and roll it into pieces as thick as your finger, shaping them into rings.

  2. 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once it is mixed with the hot milk and more flour.
Milk
Adds moisture and, when boiled and poured over the flour, helps create a smooth dough.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and binding, while whites folded in lighten the dough's texture.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the egg yolks. Hot mixture can scramble or cook the beaten egg yolks, which would leave lumps and weaken the dough's smooth, even texture.

“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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