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Dessert

Crullers Without Shortening

A fried dough pastry made from eggs, milk, flour, sugar, and baking powder, shaped into rings and fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg 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 ↓

Crullers Without Shortening

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs and salt well.

  2. Add the sugar and beat until combined, similar to making sponge cake.

  3. Stir in the milk.

  4. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and baking powder, then add to the egg mixture.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll the dough into round balls or rings with holes in the center. The softer the dough, the easier it is to roll and handle.

  2. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

  3. Flavor with nutmeg if desired.

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 + nutmegtop 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
Provide structure and richness, binding the dough and helping it hold its shape.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the dough brown during frying.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its body.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the dough so it rises and becomes tender.
Rich milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the dough.

The step that matters

Keep the dough soft when shaping. A soft dough is easier to roll and handle, but it must still hold its shape. Cold or stiff dough is harder to form, while frying in hot lard at the right heat is what sets a golden crust without absorbing excess fat.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk, flour):

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

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