Skip to main content
Dessert

Bakers' Raised Doughnuts

A yeast-leavened doughnut made with lard, milk, flour, sugar, egg whites, spices, and raisins, then fried and dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Bakers' Raised Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Warm the lard in the milk until nearly cool.

  2. Add enough flour to make a thick batter.

  3. Stir in the yeast.

  4. Beat well.

  5. Set aside to rise until light.

Make the dough

  1. Gradually mix in the sugar, whipped egg whites, dissolved baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and grated nutmeg.

  2. Add enough flour to make a stiff dough that can be rolled out.

  3. Let the dough rise again until very light.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the dough to 1 inch thick.

  2. Cut the dough into rounds.

  3. Place a seeded Sultana raisin in the center of each round.

  4. Mold the dough into balls.

  5. Flatten slightly.

  6. Let them stand for a few minutes before frying.

  7. Heat plenty of lard in a pot until boiling.

  8. Drop the doughnuts into the boiling lard.

  9. Fry until light brown.

  10. Remove with a perforated skimmer.

  11. Drain on soft white paper.

  12. Roll in 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 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 during the rise, making the dough light and airy.
Egg whites
Whipped whites add lift and a light, airy crumb to the dough.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and is the medium that fries the doughnuts.
Flour
Forms the batter and then the dough structure that holds the rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the doughnuts brown when fried.
Baking soda
Reacts to add extra lift and help the dough rise.

The step that matters

Frying in properly hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, doughnuts absorb grease and turn heavy; if too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks. Steady heat gives a light, evenly cooked result.

“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

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes