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Dessert

Isle of Wight Dough-nuts

A fried doughnut from the Isle of Wight made with lard, flour, sugar, spices, yeast, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Isle of Wight Dough-nuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Work smoothly together with the fingers four ounces of good lard and four pounds of flour.

  2. Add half a pound of fine brown sugar, two tablespoonsful of allspice, one drachm of pounded cinnamon, half as much cloves, two large blades of mace beaten to powder.

  3. Add two tablespoonsful of fresh yeast which has been watered for one night and which should be solid, and as much new milk as will make the whole into a rather firm dough.

  4. Let this stand from an hour to an hour and a half near the fire.

  5. Knead it well.

Shape and fry

  1. Make it into balls about the size of a small apple.

  2. Hollow them with the thumb and enclose a few currants in the middle.

  3. Gather the paste well over them.

  4. Throw the dough-nuts into a saucepan half filled with boiling lard.

  5. When they are equally coloured to a fine brown, lift them out and dry them before the fire on the back of a sieve.

  6. If made in large quantities, drain them upon very clean straw.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

637Calories
13 gProtein
14 gFat
112 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Macenot in our table0

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

By Eliza Acton. 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the frying shape.
Lard
Adds richness and tenderness, and fries the doughnuts in the saucepan.
Fresh yeast
Makes the dough rise during the rest near the fire, giving a light texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the doughnuts brown evenly in the hot lard.

The step that matters

Keep the lard only just boiling when adding the doughnuts. If the lard is too hot, the outsides brown and scorch before the dough inside is cooked through. Adding them just as the lard reaches boiling lets the centres cook at a steadier pace.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, allspice, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, allspice, cinnamon, clove. 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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