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Dessert

Doughnuts

A fried doughnut made with milk, sugar, eggs, baking powder, mace, salt, flour, and Cotosuet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Doughnuts

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat Cotosuet in a pan before use.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix Cotosuet, milk, sugar, eggs, baking powder, mace, and salt.

  2. Gradually add flour until a stiff dough forms.

  3. Shape the dough.

Fry

  1. Fry the dough in hot Cotosuet until golden brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Flour
Builds the structure of the dough so it holds its shape when stiff.
Eggs
Add structure and richness to the dough as it binds and sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the dough rise and become light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during frying.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and forms the dough.

The step that matters

Fry the dough in hot Cotosuet until golden brown. If the fat is not hot enough, the doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy and heavy. Frying at a steady high heat sets the outside quickly so the inside cooks through without soaking up fat.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Macethe original

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