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 ↓
Doughnuts
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Beat the eggs in a bowl.
Mix in the sugar and sweet milk.
Melt the butter and add it to the mixture.
Stir in the baking powder.
Add enough flour to make a stiff dough.
Shape and fry
Roll out the dough.
Cut the dough into round shapes.
Fry the doughnuts in hot lard until golden brown.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add richness and structure as they set.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the dough, helping the doughnuts rise and turn light.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the dough together when stiff.
- Butter
- Adds fat, which softens the crumb and gives a richer flavour.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the fried surface brown.
The step that matters
Fry the doughnuts in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy; if too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks through.
“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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