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Dessert

Good Ring Doughnuts

A doughnut made with sugar, butter, eggs, milk, ammonia, cream of tartar, lemon flavor, flour, corn starch, fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Good Ring Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the eggs and milk, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the ammonia, cream of tartar, and lemon flavor.

  4. Gradually add the flour and corn starch until a dough forms.

  5. Roll out the dough and cut with a ring cutter.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a deep fryer.

  2. Fry the doughnuts, turning them three times 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the dough together and sets when fried.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping bind the dough and give it a tender crumb.
Ammonia
Acts as a leavener, releasing gas that helps the doughnuts puff and rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the outside brown during frying.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the dough and gives a richer flavour.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that helps stabilise the dough and supports the leavening reaction.

The step that matters

Fry the doughnuts, turning them three times until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to set the dough quickly and form a crisp surface. If it is too cool, the doughnuts absorb excess fat and turn greasy; if too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks. Turning them helps both sides colour and cook evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

“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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