Skip to main content
Dessert

Delicious Doughnuts

A fried doughnut made with sour buttermilk, eggs, sugar, lard, and flour, rolled in powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Delicious Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine sour buttermilk, eggs, granulated sugar, lard, salt, and nutmeg.

  2. Gradually add flour until a soft dough forms.

Fry and finish

  1. Fry the dough in hot oil until golden brown.

  2. Remove from oil and roll in powdered sugar.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Sour buttermilk
Adds acidity and moisture, giving the dough a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the doughnuts brown in the fryer.
Lard
Adds fat, giving a tender texture and rich flavor.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the soft dough together.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. Frying in hot oil cooks the centre as the outside browns. If the oil is too cool, doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy; if too hot, they brown before the inside is cooked.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against buttermilk, egg, sugar, flour. 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.

More doughnuts recipes

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

You might also like

Buttermilk PieButtermilk Pie12 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes