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Dessert

Old-fashioned Yankee Doughnuts

A yeast doughnut made with milk, yeast, sugar, lard, eggs, baking soda, spices, and flour, then fried and dusted with powdered sugar.

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

Old-fashioned Yankee Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. In a bowl, combine the yeast and milk.

  2. Stir in flour and let it rise overnight.

Shape and rise

  1. In the morning, add sugar, lard, eggs, and baking soda.

  2. Work in enough flour to make a stiff dough and let it rise until very light.

  3. Add nutmeg or cinnamon to taste.

  4. Roll out the dough and cut into doughnut shapes.

  5. Let them stand on the molding board until light.

Fry and finish

  1. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

  2. Roll in powdered sugar when nearly 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. Nutmeg + flourtop 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

Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that holds the dough together and gives it body.
Eggs
Add richness and structure, helping the dough set and brown when fried.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and carries the heat that browns the doughnuts when fried.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the doughnuts brown evenly in the hot fat.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidity in the dough to add extra lift and a lighter crumb.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, doughnuts absorb excess fat and turn greasy and heavy. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks through. Steady heat gives a light, evenly cooked doughnut.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, 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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