Name: Salvation Army Doughnuts
Ingredients: 5 cups flour; 2 cups sugar; 4 tablespoons lard; 1 can condensed milk; 3 tablespoons baking powder; 4 teaspoons ground mace; 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 1 cup water

Why it works: Sugar and condensed milk work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 804 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Salvation Army Doughnuts

makes sixty doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

Mix flour, sugar, lard, condensed milk, baking powder, ground mace, salt, and water to form a stiff dough.

Fry

Fry the dough in deep fat 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.

Sugar + condensed milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together804 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + condensed milktop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together410 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + macetop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,974 recipes
Sugar + macetop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,096 recipes

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 as it fries.
Lard: Adds fat, which gives the doughnuts a tender, short texture.
Condensed milk: Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the surface brown when fried.
Baking powder: Releases gas during cooking, helping the doughnuts rise and become light.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during frying.

The step that matters

Frying at the right heat. If the fat is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks through. If it is too cool, the dough absorbs more oil and turns greasy. Frying until golden brown means the centre has had time to cook.

Swap the mace

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

Cinnamonfits better
Jalapenofits better
Nutmegfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, condensed milk. 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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Salvation Army Doughnuts