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Dessert

Raised Doughnuts

A yeast‑raised doughnut made with lard, sugar, mashed potatoes, eggs, and nutmeg, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,052 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Raised Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Make a sponge by mixing 1 quart of water with 1 cake of yeast; let it rise until very light.

  2. Add 1 cup of lard, 2 cups of sugar, 3 large mashed potatoes, 2 eggs, and season with nutmeg; let it rise again until very light.

  3. Roll and cut the dough, or pull off bits and shape as desired.

Fry and serve

  1. Place enough dough to fry at one time on a floured plate and set in a warm oven.

  2. Drop the dough into boiling lard and fry 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. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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 that makes the sponge and dough rise, giving a light, airy texture.
Mashed potatoes
Add moisture and starch that keep the doughnuts soft and tender.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the dough hold its shape and brown well.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and the medium in which the dough fries.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fried surface brown to a golden color.

The step that matters

Drop the dough into boiling lard and fry until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy; if too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks through. Steady heat gives an even, light result.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, nutmeg. 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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