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Dessert

Mother's Crullers

A fried dough pastry made with sugar, butter, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, and optional flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Mother's Crullers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the milk and mix until combined.

  4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until a dough forms.

  6. Add your choice of flavoring and mix well.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Fry in hot oil until golden brown on both sides.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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, contributing tenderness and flavor to the dough.
Eggs
Provide structure and richness, binding the dough and helping it hold its shape.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough once hydrated and worked.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lighten the dough and give it a tender crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning in the fried surface.
Milk
Adds moisture to hydrate the flour and enrich the dough.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until golden brown on both sides. If the oil is not hot enough, crullers absorb excess oil and turn greasy and heavy. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks through. Steady, moderate heat gives an even golden crust and a fully cooked center.

“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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