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Dessert

Raised Doughnuts

A yeast-based doughnut made with milk, lard, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Raised Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Warm the milk and lard together in a saucepan.

  2. Add the yeast and stir in enough flour to make a batter.

  3. Cover and let the batter rise overnight.

Shape and fry

  1. The next day, add the eggs, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Knead the dough and let it rise again.

  3. Roll out the dough.

  4. Cut into shapes.

  5. Let rise for 15 minutes.

  6. Fry the doughnuts.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Flour
Provides the structure that the dough builds around as it rises.
Eggs
Add richness and structure, helping the dough hold its shape and tenderness.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and gives a rich mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and feeds the yeast, supporting fermentation and browning when fried.
Baking soda
Reacts to add a small extra lift and help the dough rise.

The step that matters

Frying the doughnuts. Oil must be hot enough to seal the surface quickly. If it is too cool, the doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy and heavy instead of golden and light.

“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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