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Dessert

Doughnuts

A yeast doughnut made with butter or lard, milk, spices, eggs, flour, and wine, then fried and dusted with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Doughnuts

Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter or lard and sugar.

  2. Add the yeast and milk, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the allspice, cinnamon, and beaten eggs.

  4. Gradually add flour to form a stiff batter.

  5. Let the mixture stand to rise until light.

Shape and fry

  1. Once risen, add salt and knead into rolls about 3 inches long.

  2. Allow the rolls to rise for an hour.

  3. Fry in hot lard until light brown.

  4. Sift sugar over the doughnuts when done.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the dough hold its shape.
Butter or lard
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps the dough feel rich.
Flour
Forms the stiff batter that gives the doughnuts their body and structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the fried exterior brown.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until light brown. If the lard is not hot enough, doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy; if too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks through.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

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