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Dessert

Every-day Doughnuts

A fried doughnut made with flour, sugar, butter, baking powder, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Every-day Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, rub together the butter, sugar, and eggs until well combined.

  2. Add the sweet milk and mix until smooth.

  3. Sift the baking powder through the flour and gradually add it to the wet mixture.

Fry

  1. Heat oil in a deep kettle for frying.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the dough into the hot oil and fry until golden brown.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the doughnut together as it fries.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the hot oil, making the doughnuts rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and adds richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during frying.
Sweet milk
Supplies moisture that hydrates the flour and gives the dough its soft texture.

The step that matters

Frying in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is too hot, the outside browns and darkens before the centre cooks through. If it is too cool, the doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy. Keeping the oil at a steady, moderate heat lets the dough cook evenly.

“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.

More doughnuts recipes

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