Name: Doughnuts — No. I
Ingredients: 2 quarts milk; 2 ounces yeast; 12 ounces sugar; 12 ounces butter; 6 eggs; ½ ounce coarse sea salt; lemon extract to taste; mace to taste; good patent flour as needed

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Doughnuts — No. I

Ingredients

Directions

In a large bowl, combine lukewarm milk and yeast to create a slack sponge.
Once the sponge is ready, mix in sugar, butter, eggs, salt, lemon extract, and mace.
Gradually add flour until a smooth dough forms.
Allow the dough to rise until it doubles in size, then knead it gently.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, butter, egg, lemon, flour):

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Parsleyfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, butter, egg, lemon, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.