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Dessert

French Crullers

A fried dough ring made from milk, water, lard, flour, and eggs, finished with vanilla icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour 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 ↓

French Crullers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine the lard with the milk and water in a pot and bring to a boil.

  2. Sift the flour and stir it into the boiling mixture, then remove from heat.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool slightly, then incorporate the eggs while the paste is still warm.

  4. Use fewer eggs if the mixture becomes too soft.

Shape and fry

  1. Transfer the dough to a piping bag fitted with a large star tip.

  2. Pipe rings onto greased parchment paper cut to fit your frying pan.

  3. Carefully place the rings into hot oil.

  4. The paper will detach easily after a short time.

  5. Fry the crullers, turning them occasionally until they are golden brown and cooked through.

  6. Once cooked, remove from oil and ice with vanilla icing.

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. Milk + flourtop 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).

Milk and flour 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

Eggs
Bind the paste and give the cooked crullers structure and a light, puffed texture.
All-purpose flour
Forms the starch paste that gives the dough body so it holds its ring shape.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the dough.
Milk
Provides liquid and milk solids that add flavour and help browning in the frying.

The step that matters

Incorporating the eggs into the warm paste. Eggs must be added while the paste is warm but not hot, so they blend smoothly without scrambling. Adding too many makes the dough too soft to hold its shape, which is why the record advises using fewer eggs if it softens.

“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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