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Dessert

Raised Doughnuts

A yeast-leavened doughnut made with mashed potatoes, lard, sugar, and eggs, then fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,052 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Raised Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix water and yeast to make a sponge.

  2. Let the sponge rise until very light.

  3. Add lard, sugar, mashed potatoes, eggs, and nutmeg to the sponge.

  4. Let the dough rise again until very light.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll and cut the dough or shape it as desired.

  2. Place the shaped dough on a floured plate.

  3. Warm the dough in the oven.

  4. Drop the dough into boiling lard 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. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Yeast
Ferments the sponge so the dough rises and becomes light.
Lard
Provides fat for tenderness and frying the doughnuts in boiling lard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the yeast feed and the crust brown.
Mashed potatoes
Add moisture and softness to the dough's crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness to the dough.

The step that matters

Drop the dough into boiling lard and fry until golden brown.. If the lard is not hot enough, doughnuts absorb excess fat and turn greasy; if it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks. Steady frying temperature gives a light, evenly cooked result.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, nutmeg. 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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