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 ↓
Doughnut Balls
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Mix sugar, sweet milk, eggs, extract, baking powder, flour, and salt in a bowl until smooth.
Fry and finish
Drop spoonfuls of the batter into a skillet of hot lard.
Fry until golden brown.
Remove from the skillet and roll in powdered sugar and shredded coconut.
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.
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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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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the balls.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the balls puff and become light.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure that holds the batter together while frying.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during frying.
- Sweet milk
- Provides moisture and hydrates the flour into a batter.
The step that matters
Frying the batter spoonfuls. The lard must be hot enough so the outside sets and browns quickly. If it is too cool, the batter absorbs fat, becomes greasy, and the centres may stay raw while the outside overcooks.
“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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