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Dessert

Easy Raised Doughnuts

A sweet doughnut made with milk, yeast, flour, sugar, spices, and fried, then rolled in sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Easy Raised Doughnuts

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the starter

  1. Scald the milk and cool until lukewarm.

  2. Soften the yeast cake in ¼ cup of the milk and add to the rest.

Make the dough

  1. Stir in 1½ cups of flour and let rise until light.

  2. Add the sugar, beaten egg, shortening, salt, baking soda, and remaining flour sifted with spices.

  3. Knead the dough and let it rise again.

Shape and fry

  1. When light, roll out, cut into desired shapes, and fry in hot deep fat.

  2. Roll in sugar after frying.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 doughnuts their structure and chew.
Compressed yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, so the dough rises and becomes light before frying.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the dough hold its shape and feel tender.
Shortening
Adds fat that softens the crumb and keeps the doughnuts tender.
Light-brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the surface brown during frying.

The step that matters

Frying in hot deep fat. If the fat is too cool, doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks through. Steady, moderate heat gives an even golden crust and a fully cooked interior.

“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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