Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Exquisite Doughnuts
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water.
Add the milk and 1 pint of flour to make a sponge; set aside in a warm place to rise for 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until bubbles rise to the surface.
When well risen, add the butter and sugar, then mix thoroughly.
Add the salt, mace, and well-beaten eggs, then mix in the remaining flour to make a soft dough.
Knead thoroughly, keeping the dough soft, and set in a warm place to rise again for 1 hour and a half until light.
Shape and fry
Roll out to about ½ inch in thickness on a well-floured surface and cut with a doughnut cutter.
Let rise again in a warm place, free from drafts, for 30 minutes.
Drop into deep, boiling fat, turning frequently to brown evenly; fry for about 15 minutes.
Care for the fat
When finished frying, peel and slice a raw potato, remove the fat from the fire, and drop the potato into it.
When cool, remove the potato and set the fat aside to harden.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.
- Yeast
- Ferments sugars in the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping the dough hold its shape and brown well.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and a softer crumb.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour and adds richness and browning through milk sugars.
- Light brown sugar
- Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and color to the dough.
The step that matters
Keep the dough soft and let it rise fully before frying. A soft dough with enough gas from proper rising stays light and tender when fried. Stiff dough from too much flour or under-proofed dough fries up dense and heavy.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, egg, butter, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Jalapenofits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, egg, butter, sugar. 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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