Name: Walnut Hill's Doughnuts
Ingredients: 1 cup sour cream or milk; 2 cups sugar; 1 cup butter; 4 eggs; 1 teaspoon baking soda; Nutmeg, to taste; Cinnamon, to taste; Flour, as needed for rolling; Lard, for frying

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Walnut Hill's Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

In a large bowl, combine sour cream or milk, sugar, butter, eggs, baking soda, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
Beat the mixture well.
Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff enough to roll.

Shape and fry

Roll out the dough.
Cut the dough into diamond shapes.
Fry the doughnuts in hot lard until golden brown.

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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 structure and richness to the doughnuts.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour cream to produce gas that lightens the dough.
Sour cream: Adds acidity to activate the baking soda and gives a tender, moist crumb.
Sugar: Sweetens the dough and helps the fried surface brown.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the dough together for rolling and frying.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff enough to roll. Too much flour makes the doughnuts dense and tough, while too little leaves the dough too sticky to roll and cut cleanly. Adding it gradually lets you stop once the dough holds its shape.

“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.

Cinnamon Rolls71 recipes

Cinnamon Cake42 recipes

White Cake431 recipes

Pound Cake373 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Walnut Hill's Doughnuts