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Dessert

Raised Doughnuts

A yeast-based doughnut made with eggs, sugar, milk, water, lard, and spices, fried until golden.

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

Raised Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs and sugar together until well combined.

  2. Add the warm milk and water, then stir in the yeast and salt, followed by the melted lard.

  3. Prepare the sponge at noon; keep it warm to rise until night.

  4. Add spices of your choice, mixing until stiff like dough for rolls.

  5. Let the dough rise overnight until very light.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the dough to about 1 inch thick and cut with a small cutter.

  2. Sprinkle flour on a board and place the doughnuts an inch apart, turning them often.

  3. Use a knife to turn them gently to avoid breaking the crust.

  4. When very light, fry in fresh lard 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.

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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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

Eggs
Add richness and structure to the dough, helping it hold its shape.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning during frying.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Melted lard
Adds fat for tenderness and moisture, and gives the fried crust its flavor.
Scalded milk
Adds moisture, softness and richness to the dough.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until very light. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas to lighten the dough. Under-proofed dough fries up dense and heavy, while over-proofed dough can collapse or absorb excess 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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