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Dessert

American Doughnuts

A fried doughnut made with milk, sugar, eggs, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, nutmeg, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg 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 ↓

American Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Beat the eggs well.

  2. Add the sugar, grated nutmegs, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar, and mix.

  3. Add the milk and beat all together.

  4. Gradually mix in enough flour to make a soft dough.

  5. Roll into balls the size of a small egg.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat a pot of lard until boiling (with blue smoke).

  2. Drop in the balls and fry for 8 to 10 minutes until golden brown.

  3. Lift them out with a wire spoon or skimmer.

  4. Roll them in sifted sugar while hot and serve either hot or cold.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 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 they set in the frying fat.
Baking soda
Reacts with cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the dough and gives a light texture.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with baking soda, helping the doughnuts rise.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the surface brown during frying.
New milk
Adds moisture so the flour forms a soft, tender dough.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the doughnut shape while frying.

The step that matters

Heat the lard until boiling before frying. If the fat is not hot enough, the doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy and heavy instead of crisp and golden. Too hot, and the outside browns before the centre cooks.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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