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Dessert

Doughnuts

A sweet fried dough made with eggs, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and rolled in powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Doughnuts

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 ↓

Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs and sugar together until well combined.

  2. Add the milk and mix.

  3. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg.

  4. Combine the dry ingredients with the wet mixture and beat well.

  5. Add more flour to form a soft dough.

  6. Roll out the dough to ½ inch thick and cut into rings or small balls.

Fry and finish

  1. Fry in deep, smoking‑hot fat until brown.

  2. Drain on unglazed paper and roll in powdered sugar.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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
Bind the dough and add richness and structure as they set.
Flour
Forms the gluten-based structure that holds the dough together and gives the donut its body.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fried surface brown.
Royal baking powder
Releases gas during frying so the donuts rise and stay light.

The step that matters

Frying in smoking-hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the dough soaks up oil and turns greasy and heavy instead of sealing and browning quickly. Fat that is too cool produces greasy donuts, while very hot fat browns the outside before the centre cooks.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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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