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Dessert

Raised Doughnuts

A yeast doughnut made with butter, milk, eggs, and sugar, then fried and dusted with powdered sugar.

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 ↓

Raised Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine butter, sugar, and salt.

  2. Pour in the scalded milk and let it cool to lukewarm.

  3. Add the yeast mixture and stir.

  4. Gradually add flour to form a dough stiff enough to knead.

  5. Cover the dough and let it rise until doubled in size.

  6. Incorporate the beaten eggs into the dough.

Shape and rise

  1. Shape the dough and place it on a floured board.

  2. Let it rise for 1 hour, then turn it and let it rise again.

Fry and finish

  1. Fry in deep fat until golden, then drain on paper towels.

  2. Cool and roll in powdered 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. 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. Flour + milktop 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. Flour + eggtop 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

Flour
Forms the dough structure that traps gas and lets the dough hold its shape.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Eggs
Add richness and structure, helping the dough hold its shape and texture.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor in the finished dough.
Milk
Adds moisture and milk proteins that soften texture and aid browning.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning during frying.

The step that matters

Fry in deep fat until golden. Oil that is too cool lets doughnuts soak up grease and turn heavy, while oil that is too hot browns the outside before the centre cooks. Steady, moderate heat gives a light interior and an even golden colour.

“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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