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 ↓
Dough Nuts
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Set a sponge with 1 pint of milk.
When the sponge is light, add 4 boiled mashed potatoes, 6 oz sugar, and 6 oz butter.
Set the mixture to rise until light.
Shape and fry
Roll out the dough and fry.
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.
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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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Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar 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
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour and feeds the yeast sponge that gives the dough its first rise.
- Boiled mashed potatoes
- Adds moisture and softness, giving the doughnuts a tender crumb.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps browning in the hot fat.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
The step that matters
Let the mixture rise until light. The dough needs enough time for the yeast to produce gas and expand; under-rising leaves dense doughnuts, while the dough should be rolled and fried only once it has become light.
“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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