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Sour Cream Doughnuts

A fried doughnut made with sour cream, eggs, and flour, flavored with cinnamon and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Sour Cream Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix the sour cream, salt, baking soda, sugar, cinnamon, eggs, and sour milk in the order given.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water and beat the eggs until light.

  3. Add enough flour to make a very soft dough.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out a little of the dough at a time, cut into shapes, and leave on the board for 10 minutes.

  2. Fry in deep, hot 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sour cream
Adds richness and acidity that tenderizes the dough and gives a soft crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk and sour cream acids to produce gas that lifts the doughnuts.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the dough hold its shape while frying.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and contributes moisture and tenderness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during frying.

The step that matters

Fry in deep, hot lard until golden brown. If the fat is not hot enough, doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy and dense. Too hot, and the outside browns before the centre cooks through.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, egg, milk, flour, 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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