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Dessert

Superior Doughnuts

A sweet fried doughnut made with sugar, milk, eggs, butter, baking powder, and flavored, then coated in powdered 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 ↓

Superior Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix sugar, sweet milk, eggs, butter, baking powder, salt, and flavoring until smooth.

  2. Knead the mixture until soft.

  3. Roll it out on a floured surface.

  4. Cut the dough into desired shapes.

Fry and coat

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan.

  2. Drop the dough pieces into the lard.

  3. Fry the dough pieces until golden brown.

  4. Remove them and let cool slightly.

  5. Dip the warm doughnuts in powdered sugar before serving.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the dough hold its shape while frying.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the doughnuts rise and turn light and airy.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor in the dough.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the surface brown during frying.
Sweet milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and gives the dough its softness.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. Oil that is too cool lets doughnuts soak up grease and turn heavy, while oil that is too hot browns the outside before the centre cooks. Steady frying heat keeps them light and fully cooked.

“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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