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Crullers or Doughnuts

A sweet fried dough shaped into crullers or doughnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Crullers or Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

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

  2. Beat in the eggs until well combined.

  3. Add the baking soda and cream of tartar, mixing thoroughly.

  4. Stir in the milk and then gradually add the flour until a dough forms.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure to the crullers.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to lighten the dough and help it rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with the baking soda to produce lift.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the dough together.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the dough.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown during frying.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the crullers absorb excess oil and turn greasy and heavy. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks through. Steady, moderate heat gives a crisp, 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.

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