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Dessert

Sfe Seed Cake. Doughnuts.

A yeast-based doughnut made with milk, yeast, flour, sugar, butter, egg, and raspberry jam, fried in lard and rolled in sugar.

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

Sfe Seed Cake. Doughnuts.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Warm the milk and dissolve the yeast in it.

  2. Stir in about 1 lb. of flour and the sugar, cover, and let it rise in a warm place until it drops.

  3. Once it drops, add the melted butter, egg, and a pinch of salt; mix well. Add enough flour to form a workable dough.

  4. Place the dough in a basin, cover, and let it prove in a warm place.

Shape and fill

  1. Once proved, turn it out onto a floured surface, divide into 2 oz. pieces, and flatten slightly.

  2. Dampen the edges, place 1 spoonful of raspberry jam in the center, and gather the edges to form balls.

  3. Pinch the edges together and place on a floured cloth; cover and let them prove again.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a pot until boiling, then drop in the doughnuts.

  2. Cook for about 7 minutes on one side, then turn and cook the other side.

  3. Remove with a drainer onto clean kitchen paper, then roll in fine castor sugar and 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.

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. Milk + buttertop 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 + raspberrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,014 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light and airy.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and richer flavor.
Egg
Adds structure and richness to the dough.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Let the doughnuts prove again before frying. Under-proved doughnuts stay dense and may tear or absorb more oil, while the gas from yeast needs time to lighten the shaped pieces before they hit the hot lard.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raspberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, butter, 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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