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Crullers and Doughnuts

A fried dough treat made from flour, eggs, baking soda, and nutmeg, shaped into rings or twists.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Crullers and Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, baking soda, and nutmeg.

  2. Add eggs and mix to form a moderately stiff dough.

  3. Roll the dough to ½ inch thickness and cut into rings or twists.

Fry and drain

  1. Heat lard in an iron kettle until it stops bubbling.

  2. Drop the dough shapes into the hot lard and fry until light brown, about 5-8 minutes.

  3. Drain the fried doughnuts in a colander.

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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Flour and egg 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the dough its structure.
Eggs
Add richness and help bind the dough so it holds its shape when fried.
Baking soda
Reacts to lighten the dough and help it puff slightly in the hot fat.
Lard
Frying fat that browns the outside and carries heat evenly through the dough.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard. If the lard is not fully hot, the dough absorbs fat and turns greasy and heavy instead of browning quickly. Fry until light brown so the centre cooks through without over-darkening the outside.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg. 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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