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Dessert

50 Raised Doughnuts

A yeast‑raised doughnut made with water, yeast, salt, sugar, butter, lard, flour, lemon extract, mace, and eggs, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

50 Raised Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water.

  2. Add salt, sugar, butter, lard, and mix well.

  3. Gradually add flour, mixing until a soft dough forms.

  4. Stir in lemon extract, mace, and eggs until combined.

  5. Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth.

  6. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Shape and fry

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

  2. Fry in hot oil until golden brown on both sides.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 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

Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help the dough hold its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the finished doughnut.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the dough tender and soft-textured.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning during frying.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs enough time in a warm place to build gas and structure. Under-proofed dough fries up dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse or absorb excess oil.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, lemon, egg. 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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