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Dessert

Rich Doughnuts

A sweet fried doughnut made with sugar, eggs, baking soda, sour milk, butter, lard, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Rich Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix the sugar and beaten eggs until well combined.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and add to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the softened butter and warmed lard.

  4. Grate the nutmeg into the mixture and combine thoroughly.

Fry

  1. Fry the doughnuts in hot oil 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the surface brown when fried.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acid to produce gas that lifts the dough.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and helps tenderize the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the doughnuts tender and moist.

The step that matters

Fry the doughnuts in hot oil until golden brown.. Oil temperature controls the result. If the oil is too cool, the dough absorbs excess oil and turns greasy. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks through.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

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