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Dessert

Doughnuts

A sweet fried dough made with sugar, butter, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Doughnuts

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter and add ½ cup of sugar.

  2. Beat the eggs until light, then add the milk and remaining sugar, mixing well.

  3. Combine the flour with baking powder, salt, and spices, then add to the wet mixture.

  4. Add enough more flour to make a dough stiff enough to roll.

Shape and fry

  1. Toss ⅓ of the mixture onto a floured board, knead slightly, then roll out to ¼ inch thickness.

  2. Shape with a doughnut cutter dipped in flour.

  3. Fry in deep fat until they rise to the top, then turn until browned all over.

  4. Drain on brown paper.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the dough hold its shape while frying.
Butter
Adds fat, giving the doughnuts a tender texture and rich flavor.
Flour
Provides the main structure, forming the gluten network that holds the dough together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking, helping the doughnuts rise and become light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the doughnuts brown in the hot fat.
Milk
Adds moisture and tenderness, hydrating the flour to form the dough.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough to an even ¼ inch. Uneven thickness makes some doughnuts overcook or stay raw in the centre. A consistent thickness lets every doughnut cook through at the same rate in the hot fat.

“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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