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Dessert

3 Crullers

A fried dough ring made with buttermilk, butter, sugar, eggs, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

3 Crullers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs, then add the sugar and buttermilk.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water and add it to the mixture along with the salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

  3. Work in enough flour to make a smooth dough and mix thoroughly.

Shape and fry

  1. Dredge the board, rolling pin, and dough with flour, then roll it out.

  2. Cut the dough into rings or fingers and fry in hot fat.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure as it sets in the fat.
Baking soda
Reacts with the buttermilk's acidity to produce gas, helping the crullers rise and lighten.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity, tenderising the dough and activating the baking soda.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour in the dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crullers brown as they fry.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its body and shape.

The step that matters

Working in the flour. Adding flour until the dough is smooth and thoroughly mixed controls gluten development. Too little leaves the dough sticky and hard to roll, while overworking it makes the fried crullers tough.

“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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