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Dessert

Plain Doughnuts

A simple doughnut made with sugar, sour milk, eggs, nutmeg, lard, baking soda, salt, and flour, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plain Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the sugar, sour milk, eggs, nutmeg, melted lard, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Gradually add flour until the mixture forms a dough that is thin but can be handled.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into doughnut shapes.

  2. Fry in hot oil 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. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 to the doughnuts.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the doughnuts rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas, lightening the dough.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the doughnuts brown when fried.
Melted lard
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy, while oil that is too hot browns the outside before the inside cooks through. Steady, hot oil gives a crisp exterior and a fully cooked centre.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

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