Skip to main content
Dessert

Soda Doughnuts

A fried doughnut made with flour, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Soda Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk.

  2. Rub the cream of tartar into the flour.

  3. Mix the flour, milk, eggs, sugar, and cinnamon together.

Fry and drain

  1. Heat the lard in a deep pot until hot.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot lard and fry until golden brown.

  3. Remove and drain on paper towels.

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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar and milk to release gas, helping the doughnuts rise.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that reacts with the baking soda to leaven the dough.
Eggs
Add structure and richness to the dough as it sets in the hot fat.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the doughnuts together while frying.
Milk
Adds moisture and dissolves the baking soda so it can react through the dough.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the doughnuts absorb excess fat and turn greasy and dense. Frying in properly hot fat seals the outside quickly so the inside cooks through and the surface browns evenly.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

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

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes