Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Old-fashioned New England Doughnuts
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Soften the yeast in warm water, add salt and 1½ cups of flour to make a thin batter.
Cream together the butter and brown sugar, then stir in the beaten eggs and milk.
Combine this mixture with the yeast batter.
Add enough flour to make a kneadable dough, about 5½ cups, and let it rise in a warm place overnight.
In the morning, knead the dough thoroughly, let it rise again, then divide into thirds for easier handling.
Shape and fry
Roll the dough to ½ inch thickness and cut with a doughnut cutter.
Place the doughnuts on a floured board and let them rise until doubled in size.
Fry in hot deep fat and roll in sifted powdered sugar.
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Bread flour
- Builds the gluten network that gives the dough enough structure to be kneaded and shaped.
- Yeast
- Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor in the finished doughnut.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and moisture, and feeds the yeast while it ferments.
- Eggs
- Add richness, structure and moisture to the enriched dough.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and richness, softening the crumb of the dough.
The step that matters
Frying at the right temperature. Oil that is too cool lets doughnuts soak up grease and turn heavy, while oil that is too hot browns the outside before the inside cooks. Hot deep fat gives a light, evenly cooked result.
Swap the nutmeg
The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, milk, sugar, bread, flour):
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Nutmegthe original
- Capersfits less well
- Parsleyfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, milk, sugar, bread, flour. 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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