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Imperial Crullers

A sweet fried pastry made from a dough of flour, sugar, eggs, milk, butter, spices, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Imperial Crullers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat eggs, sugar, and butter in a bowl.

  2. Add milk, spices, and baking powder, then mix in flour.

  3. Transfer dough to a floured surface, knead until stiff enough to roll out to ¼ inch thick.

Shape and fry

  1. Cut dough into squares, make three or four incisions in each square.

  2. Lift squares by taking alternate strips between fingers and thumbs.

  3. Drop crullers into hot lard, fry 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the dough's structure, so kneading makes it stiff enough to roll and cut.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the dough and helping it hold its shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the dough, giving the fried crullers a lighter texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fried crullers brown.
Butter
Adds fat, contributing tenderness and richness to the dough.

The step that matters

Drop crullers into hot lard, fry until golden brown.. If the lard is not hot enough, crullers absorb excess oil and turn greasy; if too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks. Steady heat gives an evenly cooked, crisp result.

“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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