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Dessert

Raised Doughnuts

A yeast doughnut made with condensed milk, water, butter, sugar, eggs, and flour, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Condensed milk and sugar work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 804 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Raised Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Dilute the condensed milk with water and scald it.

  2. Add the butter and let it cool.

  3. Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water.

  4. Mix in the sugar and enough flour to make a batter.

  5. Beat well, cover, and let it rise in a warm place overnight.

Make the dough

  1. In the morning, stir in the beaten eggs, add a pinch of salt, and enough flour to make a soft dough.

  2. Knead lightly and let it rise.

Shape and fry

  1. Once risen, take out half the dough, roll it out, and cut into doughnuts with a large round cutter.

  2. Let them stand for half an hour before frying in hot fat.

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. Condensed milk + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the dough hold its shape and become tender.
Condensed milk
Adds sweetness, milk solids and softness to the dough, along with browning during frying.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and some browning to the doughnuts.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.

The step that matters

Letting the shaped doughnuts stand before frying. Resting lets the gas-trapped dough relax and puff again, so the doughnuts stay light and fry up well rather than turning dense or flat.

“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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