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Dessert

Raised Doughnuts

A yeast doughnut made with milk, sugar, lard, eggs, and potatoes, then fried and rolled in sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,052 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Raised Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Boil the milk and let it cool.

  2. In a large bowl, mix the sugar, lard, salt, eggs, yeast, nutmeg, and enough flour to make a stiff dough.

  3. Let the dough rise until doubled in size.

  4. Knead the dough lightly and let it rise again.

  5. Shape the dough into doughnuts and let them rise once more.

Fry and finish

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan until moderately hot and fry the doughnuts until golden.

  2. Roll the cooked doughnuts in 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 + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Add richness and structure to the dough, helping it hold its shape.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and carries the heat when frying.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Provides moisture and milk solids that help the dough brown and feel soft.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the doughnut surface.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.

The step that matters

Frying the doughnuts. If the lard is too cool, doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy; if too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks. Moderate heat lets the centre cook through while the surface turns golden.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, nutmeg, 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.

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