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Dessert

Crullers

Crullers are fried dough pastries made from eggs, sugar, butter, milk, cinnamon, and flour, cooked in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Crullers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Beat the eggs until light.

  2. In a bowl, combine the beaten eggs, sugar, melted butter, milk or cream, and cinnamon.

  3. Add flour gradually until the dough is moldable and can be rolled out.

  4. Roll out the dough and cut it into squares or desired shapes, making slits in some for quicker frying.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan until very hot.

  2. Fry the crullers until golden brown, ensuring the fat remains at an even temperature.

  3. Serve fresh, but they can be stored covered in a tin for a long time.

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

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

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 as they set in frying.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crullers brown evenly in the hot fat.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, giving the dough a richer texture.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture to the dough and softens its texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that lets the dough be moulded and rolled out.

The step that matters

Keep the lard at an even temperature while frying. If the fat is too cool, crullers absorb excess oil and turn greasy; if it is too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks. Steady heat gives even golden colour and a light, cooked interior.

“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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