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Dessert

Rye and Indian Doughnuts

A doughnut made from a mixture of Indian meal, rye meal, molasses, yeast, eggs, butter, and spices, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rye and Indian Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Scald the Indian meal with milk.

  2. Combine the scalded Indian meal, rye meal, molasses, yeast, eggs, butter, and spice in a large bowl.

  3. Gradually add flour until the mixture can be kneaded to the consistency of rye and Indian bread.

  4. Knead the dough until smooth and let it rise until doubled in size.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape into doughnuts and fry 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. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Indian meal
Gives the dough its body and coarse, bread-like texture.
Rye meal
Adds structure and a deeper, earthier flavor to the dough.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and color, and helps the doughnuts brown.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise before frying.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the mixture can be kneaded. Adding flour in small amounts lets you stop when the dough reaches the right consistency. Too much flour makes the doughnuts dry and dense, while too little leaves a sticky dough that is hard to shape and may not rise well.

“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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