Name: Editor's Doughnuts
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; 1 cup buttermilk; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 egg; 1 tablespoon lard; ¼ nutmeg (grated); a little cinnamon; flour (enough to make a stiff dough)

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 ↓

Editor's Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

In a bowl, mix sugar, buttermilk, baking soda, egg, lard, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
Add flour gradually until the dough is stiff enough to roll out.
Roll out the dough and cut into shapes.

Fry and finish

Heat lard in a deep pan until boiling.
Drop the dough shapes into the boiling lard and fry until golden brown.
Remove and let cool slightly, then dip in powdered sugar.

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).
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,973 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk: Its acidity reacts with baking soda to lift the dough and adds tenderness.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in buttermilk to release gas, helping the doughnuts rise.
Egg: Binds the dough and adds structure and richness.
Lard: Adds fat for tenderness and carries the heat that browns and cooks the frying doughnuts.
Flour: Provides the structure that lets the dough hold its shape when rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Frying in boiling lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the dough absorbs oil and turns greasy; if it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks. Steady heat gives a golden, fully cooked doughnut.

“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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Editor's Doughnuts