Skip to main content
Dessert

Crullers and Doughnuts

A sweet pastry made from butter, sugar, flour, and baking powder, baked or fried.

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

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Crullers and Doughnuts

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth.

  2. Warm the flour slightly and mix it gradually with the butter and sugar by hand.

  3. Knead the mixture until well combined.

  4. Press the dough into sheets about ½ inch thick on a molding board; do not roll it out.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut into desired shapes and prick or stamp a pattern on top.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

Fry

  1. For frying, heat the oil until it stops bubbling and a blue smoke rises.

  2. Test the oil with a bit of batter; if it rises quickly, the oil is ready.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the dough a tender, short texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the shaped dough together.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the dough rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Testing the frying oil. If the oil is too cool, the dough absorbs grease and turns heavy; if it is too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks. Testing with a bit of batter confirms the right temperature before frying.

“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 crullers recipes

French 5Pastry 4Delicate 3New York 3Plain 3 See all 103 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes