Name: Doughnuts with Sugar
Ingredients: 1 pound all-purpose flour; ¼ pound (1 stick) unsalted butter; ¾ pound brown sugar, finely rolled; 1 nutmeg, grated; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 1 tablespoon brewer's yeast; warm milk, enough to mix

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Doughnuts with Sugar

Ingredients

1 pound all-purpose flour
¼ pound (1 stick) unsalted butter
¾ pound brown sugar, finely rolled
1 nutmeg, grated
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon brewer's yeast
warm milk, enough to mix

Directions

Make the dough

In a bowl, combine flour, butter, brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and yeast.
Add warm milk gradually until a dough forms.
Set the dough in a warm place to rise for 1 hour or until light.

Shape and fry

Shape the dough into twists or squares.
Fry in hot oil until golden brown, then drain on a sieve.

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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour: Provides the main structure that holds the dough together.
Brewer's yeast: Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Unsalted butter: Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and carries flavor.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the surface brown when fried.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light. The yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas. Rising too short leaves the doughnuts dense, while the dough must be fully formed before rising so the gas is trapped in the gluten network.

“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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Doughnuts with Sugar