Skip to main content
Dessert

Dough-nuts

A fried dough treat made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, yeast, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Dough-nuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Cut up the butter into the flour.

  2. Add the sugar, spice, and rose-water.

  3. Beat the eggs very lightly.

  4. Pour the eggs into the mixture.

  5. Add the yeast (half a tea-cup or two wine glasses full).

  6. Stir in the milk gradually to make a soft dough.

  7. Cover and set to rise.

Shape and fry

  1. When the dough is light, cut it into diamonds with a jagging iron or a sharp knife.

  2. Fry the pieces in lard.

Finish

  1. Sprinkle loaf sugar over them when done.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

833Calories
27 gProtein
26 gFat
120 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
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 Eliza Leslie. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter 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
Forms the structure that holds the dough together and lets it rise.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Eggs
Add structure, richness and moisture to the dough.
Yeast (in the method)
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and turn light.
Milk
Adds moisture so the flour forms a soft, workable dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the doughnuts brown when fried.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light before cutting. Yeast gas expands the dough as it rises. Cutting and frying before it is fully risen leaves the doughnuts dense, because the gas that gives lightness has not yet built up in the dough.

“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 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes