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Dessert

Common Doughnuts

A sweet fried dough made with lard, eggs, sugar, and leavening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Warren, Pa. Presbyterian church. Second auxiliary missionary society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Common Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine 5 or 6 tablespoons melted lard, 2 eggs well beaten, 1 cup sour milk, 1 teaspoon soda, a little nutmeg, and sugar.

  2. Combine 1 cup sugar, 1 cup sweet milk, 2 tablespoons butter, 3 eggs, 1 teaspoon soda, nutmeg and salt.

  3. Mix quite stiff.

  4. Combine 3 eggs, 4 tablespoons melted lard, 1 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon milk, flavoring, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and flour to roll.

  5. Combine 1 egg, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 tablespoon sugar, and flour to roll.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll the dough until it is easy to roll.

  2. Roll the dough thin.

  3. Cut the dough into strips about 3 inches long and 1 inch wide.

  4. Cut those strips into 4 smaller strips.

  5. Fold the ends together and fry as fried cakes.

  6. Fry the dough in boiling lard.

  7. Fry the dough in very hot lard.

  8. Sprinkle with sugar.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

799Calories
19 gProtein
31 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Warren, Pa. Presbyterian church. Second auxiliary missionary society. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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 as they set in the frying fat.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and carries the heat that browns the outside during frying.
Soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the dough.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the surface brown in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Fry the dough in very hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the dough soaks up fat and turns greasy and heavy instead of browning quickly. Keeping the fat at a steady frying heat seals the outside and keeps the inside light.

“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.

More doughnuts recipes

Raised 110Plain 25Potato 18German 17Isle of Wight 16Sour Milk 14 See all 168 →

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