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Dessert

Doughnuts

A fried dough treat made with eggs, sugar, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, nutmeg, salt, flour, and coated in sugar.

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

Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the sugar and milk.

  2. Add the baking soda, cream of tartar, grated nutmeg, and salt.

  3. Stir in enough flour to form a dough that can be shaped without sticking.

  4. Handle the dough as little as possible and use only the flour needed.

Fry and coat

  1. Heat the lard in a deep pan.

  2. Fry the doughnuts quickly and steadily until golden brown.

  3. Remove from the lard and roll in granulated sugar while hot.

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.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 dough and add richness and structure as the doughnuts set in the lard.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the dough.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with the baking soda to help the doughnuts rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the doughnuts brown in the hot lard.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and gives the doughnuts their body.
Milk
Adds moisture and tenderness to the dough.

The step that matters

Handle the dough as little as possible. Overworking dough develops gluten, making the doughnuts tough and dense. Using only the flour needed keeps the texture tender and light.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, cream, 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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