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Dessert

Dough-nuts

A sweet fried dough made with flour, butter, sugar, eggs, yeast, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, and rose water.

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

Dough-nuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Cut the butter into the flour.

  2. Add the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and rose-water.

  3. Beat the eggs until light and pour them into the mixture.

  4. Stir in the yeast and gradually add the milk to form a soft dough.

  5. Cover the dough and let it rise until light.

Shape and fry

  1. Cut the dough into diamond shapes with a sharp knife.

  2. Fry the dough in oil until golden brown.

Finish

  1. Grate loaf 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.

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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the dough together and traps the gases that make it rise.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and enriches the flavor of the dough.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the dough.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise and become light.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and gives the dough its soft texture.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and tenderness to the dough.

The step that matters

Frying the dough in oil until golden brown. Oil that is too hot browns the outside before the centre cooks, while oil that is too cool lets the dough soak up grease and turn heavy. Frying at a steady moderate heat cooks the inside through and gives an even golden crust.

“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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