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Dessert

Crullers

A fried dough pastry made with buttermilk, butter, sugar, eggs, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Crullers

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs and mix in the sugar and buttermilk.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water and add it to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the salt, grated nutmeg, and ground cinnamon.

  4. Add enough flour to form a smooth dough.

Shape and fry

  1. Dredge the board, rolling pin, and dough with flour.

  2. Roll out the dough and cut it into rings or fingers.

  3. Fry the cut pieces in hot fat 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 structure and richness to the crullers.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and tang, and reacts with the baking soda to help the dough rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release gas, lightening the dough.
Butter
Adds fat, tenderness and flavour to the dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crullers brown when fried.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and lets it be rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Fry the cut pieces in hot fat until golden brown. If the fat is not hot enough, the pieces absorb excess oil and turn greasy; if it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks through.

“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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