Skip to main content
Dessert

Pastry Crullers

A fried pastry made from a batter of flour, water, eggs, butter, and salt, cooked in a cruller iron and served with cinnamon sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Pastry Crullers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour and water until combined.

  2. Add the butter, beaten eggs, and a little salt; mix well.

Fry the crullers

  1. Heat the cruller iron in boiling lard until thoroughly hot.

  2. Drain excess lard from the iron, then dip it into the batter in a pint cup, avoiding contact with the cup's bottom or sides.

  3. Dip the iron back into the boiling lard and fry until golden brown.

  4. Remove the cruller from the iron and reheat the iron before repeating.

  5. Serve plain or sprinkle with cinnamon 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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Cinnamon and sugar 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
Forms the main structure of the batter once combined with liquid.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the dough hold its shape while frying.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor in the batter.
Boiling lard
Fries the batter quickly, turning its surface golden brown and crisp.

The step that matters

Dip the iron into the batter without touching the cup. Batter that touches the cup's bottom or sides can stick and misshape the cruller. Keeping the iron clear lets the batter release cleanly into the hot lard.

Swap the cinnamon

The recipe marks cinnamon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, butter, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, butter, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes