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 ↓
Doughnuts
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Beat the eggs and sugar in a bowl until light.
Add the milk, salt, flour, baking powder, and flavoring.
Mix the mixture until smooth.
Fry
Drop tablespoonfuls of dough into hot fat.
Optionally, place stewed prunes or apricots in the center of each doughnut.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 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
- Add structure and richness, and help bind the dough.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the main structure of the dough as its proteins set during frying.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the dough so the doughnuts rise and turn light.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and softness, hydrating the flour into a smooth dough.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the doughnuts brown during frying.
The step that matters
Drop tablespoonfuls of dough into hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy and heavy. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks. Keeping the fat at a steady frying temperature gives a light, evenly cooked result.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
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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