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Raised Doughnuts

Raised doughnuts are yeast-leavened dough fried in lard and dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Raised Doughnuts

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine warm milk, sugar, eggs, shortening, and yeast in a bowl.

  2. Add enough flour to create a soft sponge.

  3. Let the dough rise overnight.

Shape and rise

  1. In the morning, make a soft dough.

  2. Let the dough rise a second time until light.

  3. Roll out the dough and cut into shapes.

  4. Let the shapes rise again.

Fry and finish

  1. Fry the shapes in hot lard until golden.

  2. Dust with powdered sugar while hot.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Milk
Provides moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour and feeds the yeast.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the dough hold its shape and turn tender.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light and airy.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness, helping the doughnuts brown when fried.
Shortening
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.

The step that matters

Let the shapes rise again before frying. Shaped dough needs this final proof so the yeast can build gas and lighten the texture. Under-proofed doughnuts stay dense and may absorb more oil while frying.

“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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