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Jolly Boys

Jolly Boys are sweet fried dough balls dusted with sugar.

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

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Jolly Boys

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Scald 1 cup of Indian meal.

  2. Beat ¼ cup of butter until creamy.

  3. Add 3 beaten eggs.

  4. Add 1 pint of warm milk that has been scalded and cooled.

  5. Mix in the Indian meal.

  6. Dissolve 1 tablespoon of yeast in 2 tablespoons of warm water.

  7. Add the dissolved yeast to the mixture.

  8. Stir in ½ cup of sugar.

  9. Add enough flour to make a soft dough.

  10. Cover and let rise in a warm place overnight.

Shape and rise

  1. In the morning, shape the dough into balls the size of English walnuts.

  2. Place on a floured cloth and let rise for about 1 hour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in smoking hot fat until golden.

  2. Dust with sugar.

  3. Serve.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Indian meal
Adds body and a coarse, slightly grainy structure to the soft dough.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the dough.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping bind the dough.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and meal.
Yeast
Produces gas during the overnight and final rises, leavening the dough.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning in frying.

The step that matters

Frying in smoking hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the dough absorbs oil and becomes greasy before the outside sets and turns golden. Very hot fat seals the surface quickly, keeping the inside light and the frying oil cleaner.

“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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