Skip to main content
Dessert

Carolina Crullers

Fried dough pastries made from butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Carolina Crullers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with milk.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the dough on a floured surface.

  2. Cut into desired shapes and fry in hot oil 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 + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness to the crullers.
Eggs
Add structure and binding, and help the dough hold its shape when fried.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping the crullers rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture, so the dough is soft and easy to roll.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fried crullers brown.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is too cool, the crullers absorb excess oil and turn greasy; if it is too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks through. Steady heat gives a crisp exterior and a fully cooked centre.

“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.

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes