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Dessert

Raised Doughnuts

A yeast‑raised doughnut made with sugar, flour, milk, butter, spices, and fried in lard.

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 ↓

Raised Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift together the sugar and flour in a large bowl.

  2. Warm the milk and butter together until the butter is melted.

  3. Add the warm milk mixture and yeast to the flour mixture, along with spices to taste.

  4. Mix until a stiff dough forms and set aside to rise for 4 to 5 hours.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll the dough thin and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Fry the doughnuts in 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and lets it stretch when rolled.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes richness to the dough.
Milk
Adds moisture and proteins that help build a soft, tender dough and browning.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness, plus some browning during frying.

The step that matters

Rising the dough. The dough must rise long enough for the yeast to produce enough gas to lighten it. Underproofed dough fries up dense, while the dough should stay warm enough for the yeast to stay active.

“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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