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Dessert

Dough - Nuts

A sweet doughnut made with eggs, powdered sugar, milk, nutmeg, flour, baking soda, and fried in fat.

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

Dough - Nuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs in a large bowl for about 5 minutes.

  2. Stir in the powdered sugar, salt, sweet milk, and grated nutmeg.

  3. Sift together the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  4. Quickly stir the flour mixture into the wet ingredients until a soft dough forms.

  5. Turn the dough onto a floured surface.

  6. Roll the dough out to ½ inch thick.

  7. Cut the dough into rounds with a biscuit cutter.

  8. Cut a small hole in the center of each round.

  9. Let the doughnuts rise in a warm place until slightly puffy.

Fry and drain

  1. Heat the frying fat until smoking hot.

  2. Fry the doughnuts until light brown.

  3. Remove the doughnuts with a skimmer.

  4. Drain the doughnuts on a sieve or paper.

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. 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. Nutmeg + creamtop 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
Provide structure and richness, binding the dough together.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten and starch framework that gives the doughnuts their body.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so baking soda reacts and helps the doughnuts lighten.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas, helping the doughnuts rise.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture to hydrate the flour and soften the dough.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and fine texture to the dough.

The step that matters

Quickly stir the flour mixture into the wet ingredients. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to develop, and overmixing makes the dough tough and dense. Mixing just until a soft dough forms keeps the doughnuts tender. Acid and baking soda also start reacting as soon as they are wet, so working quickly preserves their lift.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  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, flour, cream. 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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